Book Club 2025: A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I bought this a couple years ago — I was in New York and thought it’d be fun to go down to Coney Island and read this book. Such conceptual! So I went to the Strand and got a copy and then we went down there, and… I kinda forgot to read it.

And… reading it now, I’m not really that taken with it. I know, it’s sold more than a million copies, which has to be some kind of record, I guess. I do like the conscious “hipsterness” of it all — daddy-o and cats — but perhaps you had to be there or something? I can totally see how many of these could have felt very on point (and daring, perhaps) in the 50s.

But many of these are just pure cornball.

(Not that I’m in any way shape or form qualified to talk about poetry.) I did like a few of the poems, like this one:

Wistful. Or this one:

Funny, and it’s about Manhattan, which is always a plus.

I’ve read most of the beat poets by now (but it’s been a while with the rest), and either my tastes have changed, or this isn’t as strong as, say, Howl, to take a random example.

A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (buy new, buy used, 4.16 on Goodreads)

Record Label Samplers: A Christmas Record

OK, we’re getting towards the end of this blog series — and it’s a record label sampler that’s also a themed compilation, so including this album in this blog series is cheating a bit.

But! It has virtually everybody who was signed to Ze Records at the time, and it doesn’t have any “external” artists, so I think it counts as a record label sampler.

Ze Records was a late 70s/early 80s a label I discovered a few years back, and I’ve slowly been buying everything they released. I think I’m done now? They didn’t really last all that long — perhaps five years of actually doing stuff, but they were really productive years.

They were a New York Downtown sort of outfit — combining a post punk approach to disco, so you have stuff that’s free jazz adjacent along with slick soul music. I guess that sounds like a mess aesthetically, but it really coheres — and there’s a lot of humour in many of these bands, and that comes through on this Christmas album.

Which can be listened to as a joke, but it’s also just a really good album in itself. OK, there’s a couple of songs that are just downright annoying, and not in a good way, but who can resist Suicide doing a festive song? Or James White having a Christmas with Satan?

I also think it works well as a record label sampler — somebody stumbling onto this might well be intrigued by this and go out buying the albums of the different acts.

 04:30 Cristina - Things Fall Apart
 03:16 Suicide - Hey Lord
 03:26 Three Courgettes - Christmas Is Coming
 06:11 James White - Christmas With Satan
 05:17 The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
 04:55 August Darnell - Christmas On Riverside Drive
 03:15 Material, Nona Hendryx - It's A Holiday
 02:54 Was (Not Was) - Christmas Time In The Motor City
 02:49 Davitt Sigerson - It's A Big Country

Full album:

And individual tracks:

Things Fall Apart (Remastered)

Suicide - Hey Lord (1981)

Christmas Is Coming (Bonus Track)

James White-Christmas With Satan

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping (Music Video)

Christmas on Riverside Drive (Remastered)

Material with Nona Hendryx - It's A Holiday

Was (Not Was) - Christmas Time in Motor City

It's A Big Country

This blog post is part of the Record Label Samplers series.

Book Club 2025: Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

Back in the 90s, Janet Frame had a real moment — Jane Campion made a successful movie (An Angel at My Table) based on Frame’s autobiography, and then Campion’s The Piano won a few Oscars, which together (I think) led to a rediscovery of Frame’s novels. I think I saw several of them being translated to Norwegian all of a sudden, for instance?

But you don’t hear a lot about Janet Frame these days, do you? I mean, she died in 2004, which usually means that an author’s book fall out of the general public consciousness, but in Frame’s case it just seems so…

I mean, I don’t think I’ve seen her name mentioned once in the last couple of decades.

Anyway, I’ve read almost all her novels — I bought them all in the 90s, and I’ve slowly worked my way through the backlog. After this one, there’s only one more left.

I think Living in the Maniototo is some kind of masterpiece. I read her first novel, Owls Do Cry last year, and it er wasn’t, so I’m ever so slightly trepidatious about this one, because it’s her second.

*phew* I needn’t have worried — this is fantastic.

She has such a straightforward way of writing that’s nevertheless slippery. I mean, read the two pages above — there’s something beautiful and also heartbreaking in the way that it’s written.

And the book is just filled with little bits like this. It’s engrossing and moving — it’s very emotionally affecting, while the writing is calm and collected.

Janet Frame also has quite a sense of humour, so there’s laughter in between the crying. (For the reader, I mean.) In short: The book’s ace.

Faces in the Water (1961) by Janet Frame (buy new, buy used, 4.02 on Goodreads)

Record Label Samplers: Tigerbeat6 Inc.

This is something of a cheat. Because this CD is something a bit more than a label sampler — it’s mostly acts from the Tigerbeat6 label, but there’s also other random people.

And I’ve tried to only feature label samplers that work as albums — that are more than just a collection of random tracks, and I’m not sure this one does, really. It’s sometimes difficult to tell the whether you like a record label sampler because you just like the record label a lot, or whether they’ve managed to put together a satisfying album, but I think this is more the former than the latter.

They have tried to do some sequencing here — they’ve put most of the slower songs on the second CD and the more punchy tracks on the first CD, but it doesn’t really work well.

Tigerbeat6 was just such a moment — fun and funny, abrasive and melodic, insane and heartfelt. It was kinda everything, and I have bought absolutely everything they released. And then, after a handful of brief years, it was over, and like with many of these record labels that were a zeitgeist, most of the bands associated with the label kinda dissipated when the label went down the drain.

I guess you’d call most of these bands brokebeat bands? And there’s a few noise acts, and some that do glitch music, and more than a few that are just noisy, bratty rock bands… It was a fun few years, and I guess this sampler works as a nostalgic reminder, if nothing else.

 03:11 Gamers In Exile - I Am A Decent Man
 01:26 Fossil - Kick'SC
 03:57 Cex - Furcoat
 02:22 Aelters - Poc Size
 05:05 Jetone - Ginotopia
 04:25 Joseph Nothing - Exoticmanwalking(Edit)
 01:39 Knifehandchop - Sun Jammer Is My Favorite Pokeman Trainer
 03:52 D84 - Rock-Its-Hip
 04:11 Lesser - Mensa Dunce Squad (Leg Up Program)
 02:23 Blectum From Blechdom - Always Frank
 03:13 Sonic Dragolgo - Strange
 02:59 Disc - Where My Brap At?
 02:41 Goodiepal - Wooper
 02:46 Dwayne Sodahberk - I Understand You
 04:31 Medicine - One More Night
 01:48 Tugboat Fantastic! - I Want To Go To The Disco
 04:57 Lusine Icl - Shin
 03:34 Noriko Tujiko - White Film
 01:02 Pisstank - A Small Good Thing
 03:58 Twerk - Jujik_Olop
 02:49 Pimmon - King Coming Melodia
 04:06 Ted Sulkowicz - Kid_Newtown
 02:59 Wobbly - Made Happy

 07:08 Kid606 - You Just Don't Understand
 03:47 Com.A - Hallucination Acid Lobot
 03:29 Gold Chains featuring Nina Oppenheim - Burn Babylon
 02:37 Dwayne Sodahberk - Nu_Maschine
 04:56 Languis - Snowfall
 04:24 Electric Company - Lit Up And Protruding
 01:41 Kevin Blechdom - Klardiscopic Remedy #1
 01:27 Daedelus - Exp.
 02:51 DAT Politics - #21
 01:22 Max Tundra - The Bill
 06:31 Geoff White - Fog G
 04:44 Stars As Eyes - More Difficult
 02:37 Steward - The Man With The Tiny Hands
 02:25 Jean Bach - P-Mechccjoymx
 04:42 Mikael Stavostrand - Or
 03:56 Nut 'n' Honey - Eskimokisses
 03:23 Swim With The Dolphins - Yr Guitar
 02:10 Kpt.Michi.Gan - Yr Lips-Yr Eyes
 00:37 About This Product - 18 Metal Birds Pt. 1
 03:04 Leafcutter John - Untitled 4 [Edit]
 06:08 Stilluppsteypa - Nice Things To File Away

Just about half of these tracks can be found on Youtube these days:

I am a Decent Man- Gamers in Exile

Cex - Furcoat (Tigerbeat6)

Jetone - "Ginotopia" - 2001

Joseph Nothing - Exoticmanwalking (Edit)

D84 - Rock-Its-Hip

Mensa Dunce Squad (Leg Up Program)



Disc - Where My Brap At?



Kid606 - You Just Don't Understand

Dwayne Sodahberk - Nu_Maschine

Languis - Snowfall

Lit Up And Protruding- Electric Company

Dat Politics - #21


Geoff White - Fog G



Mikael Stavostrand - Or

Nut'n' Honey - Eskimokisses

Swim With The Dolphins - Yr Guitar


Stilluppsteypa - Nice Things To File Away

This blog post is part of the Record Label Samplers series.

Book Club 2025: Uncle Fred in the Springtime by P. G. Wodehouse

I thought it was time for another Wodehouse book… Have I mentioned how much I like the Everyman edition series? The format, the typography, the paper, the binding — everything is perfect. Except the artwork on the dust covers. It’s all by somebody called Andrzej Klimowski, and they’re all naff. They mostly look pretty slapdash (even if the colours are often pretty attractive), and this one even has a pretty unfortunate subject matter. And it’s not even depicting a major scene in the novel.

The novel, though, is very funny. It takes an unusual amount of time for Wodehouse to get his ducks in a row — over a hundred pages — but when he finally gets everybody installed at the country estate, we get some of the most insane scenes Wodehouse has ever written. So many characters, and so many twists, and so much funny repartee. I LOL-ed out loud several times.

There’s also rare meta moments, like when Lady Constance starts pondering why their estate always seems to be beset by impostors, or when the narrator talks about coincidences…

I wonder whether this was ever adapted for the screen? They’d have to cut down the number of characters to about a third, I think, for it to work, but there’s so many funny scenes.

Nope, just a radio adaptation and:

Scenes from the novel were adapted in the first episode of the second series of the Blandings television series, “Throwing Eggs”, which first aired on 16 February 2014.

Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939) by P. G. Wodehouse (buy used, 4.21 on Goodreads)