Modern Times
Bob Dylan
Columbia Records
cd The Bob lives. And on Modern Times he also loves and leers, remembering a past that seems impossibly far away, even as he surveys the details of the Right Now and a not-so-far-off Judgment Day.
Dylan’s first album since 2001’s Love and Theft lacks the driving pulse of its predecessor, which galloped through many moods and tempos. Modern Times is a looser affair, with many muted songs that unwind themselves slowly, as rock’s poet laureate meanders through profound verses—and downright silly ones.
The country-rock stomp of “Thunder on the Mountain” kicks things off. It’s an irresistible backwater groove that name-checks Alicia Keys, offers a head-scratching line that seems deliciously dirty—“I got the pork chop/She got the pie”—and captures Dylan vowing to forget about himself for a while, to “go out and see what others need.”
What all the words mean is not always apparent—but the search for deep truth seems beside the point when Dylan’s superb band kicks up some serious dirt on “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” a mean-woman number that stings like any good mean-woman number should. “Some lazy slut has charmed away my brains,” Dylan croaks, making the plight sound both pleasant and dreadful. The cocksure “Someday Baby” shakes its stuff to a gritty bass line and a fast-shuffling drumbeat that, one imagines, will sound even better live.
At their most inspired, Dylan’s lyrics still cut to the bone, particularly on “Nettie Moore,” a spare lament that sounds as old as hell, and on “Workingman’s Blues #2,” a more earnest, salt-of-the-earth version of Theft’s unforgettable blue-collar ode, “Po’ Boy.” And, showing that he’s not getting any less agile with age, somehow the dude successfully rhymes “sons of bitches” with “orphanages.”
Still, not everything soars. “Spirit on the Water,” a loping ballad, goes on and on and on. “When the Deal Goes Down” is sweet, but somehow tepid. And the lulling swing of “Beyond the Horizon” loses itself in repetition and oh-so-many ramblings about immortal bliss and such.
But then comes the absolutely stunning closer, “Ain’t Talkin’,” a violin-haunted stroll through a mystic garden that leads past Desolation Row and into the heart of darkness. “I’m trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others/But, oh mother, things ain’t going well,” Dylan sings coolly, phrasing such things as only he can. It’s an imagistic spell as strong as any he has ever recorded. And the strength of this chilling, apocalyptic ditty alone should make us beg for forgiveness for ever thinking that this guy had lost his power as a songwriter.—Eric Hoover
Half Life
Shelley Jackson
Harper Collins, 437 pages
words Half Life, Shelley Jackson’s debut novel, is a confessional spliced with a far-fetched thriller, doused with particles of philosophical introspection, mingled with comic misadventures, swirled with ribald satire and irradiated with an overdose of narrative whizz-bang and derring-do. In short, Half Life, with its amalgamation of styles and genres, is a mutant novel—and that’s a good thing.
Conceived on a bus during a nuclear test, Nora and Blanche Olney are conjoined twins enduring a 15-year case of sibling rivalry, during which the latter twin retreats into a voluntary coma. This leaves our protagonist/narrator Nora to fend for herself in an eerie, alternate universe in which conjoined twins (known as “twofers”) are an established minority group, complete with pride parades, pronoun-specific language (“theirstories” and “tyou” instead of “history” and “you”) and social groups struggling for worldwide rights. Amidst this rocky socio-political terrain, Nora decides to rid herself of the deadweight Blanche. To do so, she seeks the help of the mysterious Unity Foundation, an underground society of purists who surgically fulfill twofers’ closeted desire for singularity. Intertwined with Nora’s grave quest for a Kervorkian-like cosmetic surgeon is the history (excuse me, “theirstories”) of the twins’ far-from-normal adolescence in the blasted Nevada desert town of Too Bad.
If you’ve read the preceding plot summary and are currently shaking your head in disdain at the current state of American letters, then Half Life is not your kind of novel. Which is a shame, because underneath its freakish postmodern exterior lurks a brilliant and inventive novel—one that expertly deconstructs identity politics while constructing a story as engrossing and entertaining as it is bizarre and baroque. The issues raised about personal and group identity—which are embodied in the “Siamese Twin Reference Manual” entries littered throughout the novel—resonate in our current climate of minority politics and political correctness. While Jackson certainly doesn’t treat her protagonists as freaks, she obviously knows when identity politics can go from common sense to sheer ridiculousness.
Of course, Half Life would be a stumbling monstrosity, a mere curio, were it not for the unpolished beauty of Jackson’s prose, and the limitlessness of her imagination. Even the most disturbing passages (such as when the young Nora and Blanche collect dead animals for their own private zoo) are a joy to read—and to read out loud to others. Startling and unnerving, extraordinary and sublime, Shelley Jackson’s Half Life is that rare debut novel that is both wonderful to read and impossible to forget. Unfortunately, it probably won’t strike a middle ground with many readers. Like Ripley’s infamous TV show, you’ll either believe it, or not.— Zak M. Salih
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Square Enix
PlayStation 2
games There are some forms of entertainment that simply shouldn’t cross genres. Jessica Simpson shouldn’t be an actress (or, for that matter, a singer). Tony Kornheiser was never meant to be a “Monday Night Football” color guy. And Final Fantasy VII, apparently, was never meant to be an action game.
In the last year or so, Square Enix has been expanding the story and scope of gamedom’s most beloved and legendary RPG. First came last year’s all-CGI flick Advent Children, and now we get Dirge of Cerberus, a spin-off tale trapped in a dully designed third-person shooter. Director Takayoshi Nakazato was reportedly shooting for the Final Fantasy version of Half-Life; unfortunately, what he’s wrought is closer to half-baked.
Dirge’s main man is Vincent Valentine, the moody, broody ex-science experiment who popped up as a hidden character in FFVII, packing his triple-barreled gun Cerberus. Now, three years later, mysterious soldiers known as Deepground are looking to unleash yet another Weapon That Will Destroy the World. Vincent’s both the key to the mystery and the only one who can stop the bad guys. How, you ask? By running through drab hallways, alleys and warehouses, shooting at the same bland sets of soldiers and robotic dogs, and completing missions ripped straight out of every shooter game from the past 10 years.
This might be forgivable if the bang-bang were actually fun—but Square Enix commits the cardinal sin of making their jaw-dropping cutscenes (the company’s trademark) significantly cooler than the game itself. In one example, Vincent launches into the air, blasting a huge Deepground dragonfly airship out of the sky before coming to precarious rest on the crossed spire of a church, about 100′ off the ground. Awesome, obviously. So why, when you’re actually controlling him, can’t Double-V jump high enough to scale a simple wall?
But for Final Fantasy diehards, it might be fine that plot trumps game play—ultimately, the chance to groove on Vincent’s back story may be just enough to keep you blasting all the way to the end. Hit the finish line, and your reward is an unexpectedly generous handful of unlocked missions. Some of which, unlike the main game itself, are actually enjoyable.—Aaron R. Conklin