Hej!

Hi there, legions of fans. Apologies for the recent neglect. I'm in Sweden. Uppsala, to be exact. I flew in yesterday, arrived at 8 in the morning, grabbed my rental car (a Skoda, for those of you who pay attention to types of cars; small and grayish-blue, for the rest of us) at the airport, and dived in head-first to my summer job. Uppsala: conquered. Yesterday I walked my ankles off museuming. This country really knows how to do museums. Then today I drove around to all the old iron-forge villages. Very pretty (oh but for a motorcycle on these roads! Course, then I'd never get any work done).

Every time I come to Sweden, especially in spring, I realize I'd forgotten how incredibly pretty the landscape is. Everything is ludicrously green, and practically all the buildings are either cute and red or cute and vanilla or, in the cities, cute and tan. The cuteness is overwhelming. There's also a very particular feel to being here, something to do with the humidity plus the uniformly soft smell of the handsoap...I know that sounds odd, but it's true. (They use the same handsoap in every public restroom in Sweden, plus in my grandmother's house.)

This afternoon I drove through the town of Film. One-word review: picturesque! Seemed wrong to take a photo, though; all I have is a digital.

Also saw a cat shaved like a poodle.

Details and photos coming up.

Northline

Willy V's book just came out! (Dang, Powell's made me think it wasn't out until this weekend.) I have been waiting all week and am annoyed that I didn't just go look and see if they had it at the bookstore, because they probably did. You can't trust the Internet! (For reals about the waiting, though! It is going to be my finally finished-with-the-semester present to myself!) Anyway, I'm going over there right now!

Meanwhile...here's WV's playlist on the New York Times book blog.

Also, check out this sort of funny/creepy thing I found the other day: a blog post in which someone psychoanalyzes my review of WV's novel The Motel Life.

Book review!

Turkish author Asli Erdogan is speaking in NYC over the next couple of days. I wrote a review of her latest novel, The City in Crimson Cloak (Soft Skull), but I got too distracted by homework to do anything with it, so instead I'll start a new trend and make my glob vaguely timely. Here you go!

The City in Crimson Cloak
by Asli Erdogan
Translated by Amy Spangler
$14.95
Soft Skull/Counterpoint

People fend off death in all kinds of ways, usually after they've done their best to court it. Take for example Asli Erdogan's heroine, Ozgur, a stubborn Turkish girl who throws herself into the slums of Rio de Janeiro and refuses to leave, though she knows the city will kill her.

We know it, too. The novel introduces us to Ozgur on the last day of her life, but even if it didn't say so on the cover, you'd be able to guess from the fever-dream intensity of her language that this girl is not long for the world. Erdogan packs her small novel with sensuous, hypnotic and hyperrealistic evocations of Rio -- squalor, heat, paranoia, drugs, noise, corpse-lined streets -- that make Ozgur's dark attachment to the city convincing. She hates the place, but she's transfixed. The fragmented story never clearly explains why she's there to begin with, but one thing you know right away is that she's not the kind of girl to walk away from a fight. And in Rio she finds herself an epic battleground and a gargantuan foe.

Ignoring her mother's long-distance pleas to come home, Ozgur lurks in her spartan room, smoking, fuming and writing. She's out of money, and she's lost touch with her friends. She's an angry girl alone in a dangerous city. Going home would be too easy. Worse, it would be a concession to the rules, an implicit acknowledgement that young girls should behave themselves, that certain places are simply unlivable, that there's no point in struggling against the way things are. Instead, with a thin notebook as her only weapon, Ozgur sets out to tame the city, to remake it according to her own vision. The novel she is writing serves as correction, accusation and lament.

"I wrote," Ozgur explains, "because I could find no other cover, no other protection against death in this city which puts a value on human life of ten to four hundred dollars per head."

The book is short but not slight. Ozgur/Erdogan writes as if she wants to grab the reader by the collar, shake him awake and then slam his face into each metaphor to make sure he gets it. Sometimes she almost loses control of language: "The violence that had grown in her heart like a stalagmite ever since she'd begun to live in this city frequently took over the reins to her being," she writes early on in the book. But the mixed metaphor actually fits here -- in a city as physically and spiritually chaotic as Erdogan's Rio, you can believe that a geological feature might seize the reins and drive a person headlong into disaster.

The stories Ozgur records in her notebook are, she tells us, "just phenomena that I've selected to replace reality, lies to lick my wounds... A few glimmering twitches in an ocean of darkness. Tremulous, plain, enchanted..."

Before long, fiction ripens into prophecy: the things she describes begin happening to her. Ozgur started writing in order to tame the city, but inevitably, the city takes over. Erdogan, a Turkish human-rights activist who has served on the PEN American Center's Writers in Prison Committee, might not have intended her second novel to be an allegory for the creative struggle, but reading it that way is no stretch.

Setting an Example

It's good to know Sweden is focusing its energy on the really important things....

Meat

Mmm. I just ate a tiny, tiny slice of salami that contained:

• 90 billion milligrams cholesterol
• 40 pounds sodium
• 875 hectares fat
• 1 pinch arsenic

Which for some reason leads me to wonder: when people invented the term "heart attack," did they intend it to mean an attack upon the heart, or by the heart? Like, was it understood to be some form of revenge? Just wondering...idle curiosity....

DN.se

I was looking for an article about my friend Jennifer in Dagens Nyheter, but instead I found this. Whoa.

Scandal update!

There's a good Thomas K interview on World Hum. Here's a highlight -- sound familiar, anyone?

What’s the worst thing about writing guidebooks?

For me, it’s the fact that as a writer you are set up to be a hack. Sure you can drive yourself insane over doing all of the research and writing and you can take on a few thousand dollars’ worth of personal debt to get close to researching everything, but there is only so much that someone can cover and cover honestly—especially over and over again if it’s your career.

And the best thing?

The research stage is never dull. That’s not to say that it’s all good times, exotic cocktails and memorable sunsets, but you do get accustomed to an extremely high level of stimulus in daily life. For me, at least, it became an addiction. I think that’s what really brings the writers back time and time again. However, like any addiction, it is painful when you are without it and, in this case, must spend the following months in solitude, typing up reviews in templates. After my first book, a fellow guidebook writer confided, “I always forget how painful it was to write the last book just in time to sign on for a new one.”

Here's a better one

A fellow copy editor/guidebook author I know has posted about Thomas K's book on her blog, sounding pretty darn reasonable -- and incidentally making me suspect (not for the first time) that I'm a chump for never taking free hotel rooms: check out Zora's blog post.

Scandal! Intrigue! etc

One of my fellow LP scribes wrote a book and is suddenly getting all kinds of attention! Sample news story here.

What do you guys think???

Getting in the mood

Between reading assignments, I've been planning the research trip for my summer job of updating Lonely Planet's guidebook to Sweden (I'll mainly be covering the north, which I love). In plumbing the depths of my laptop for probably outdated map notes, I found the text of a miniature coffeetable book I wrote for LP that never came out (the series was canceled, alas). Generalizations abound, and most of the book was, if I remember correctly, researched during wine-fueled late-night conversations with friends, so it may need some salt -- but here are a few tidbits. (I know...old text + old photos = a weak glob entry, but hey, I'm on deadline.) Enjoy.

Lagom är bäst
Lagom is a Swedish word that doesn't have an exact equivalent in English. Like ordning och reda, it encapsulates a philosophy. Lagom has to do with balance and moderation - roughly speaking, it means 'not too little, not too much, but just enough.' But it doesn't carry the sense of restraint or deprivation that a similar word in English might. To understand the idea of lagom, one has to realize that excess is undesirable, that 'just enough' is the perfect amount and that nobody in his or her right mind would ever want more than the lagom amount of anything, whether it's money, snaps or butter on their hardbread. Under the darkest possible view of lagom, one might infer that Sweden strives for mediocrity, that ambition is selfish and normalcy is success. But for the most part lagom simply implies a distaste for overindulgence and greed, an appreciation for balance in life, and an urge to maintain equilibrium in all things. Exaggerating the definition of lagom, after all, wouldn't really be lagom.

Stockholm runs like a well-oiled machine. Public buses are clean and go everywhere, including late at night, and are never off-schedule by more than a minute or two. Same goes for the subway (Tunnelbana). There's a certain amount of collective agreement about the proper order in which things should happen that tends to keep the city running smoothly, at least for the most part.

It's also a society that emphasizes efficient use of resources. Environmentally friendly practices have been built into the city's infrastructure to the point that recycling is almost effortless. Locally grown produce, fish and game are relatively accessible and used whenever possible. Hotels and youth hostels provide sorting bins for guests' garbage. It's an expensive city, so waste of resources holds little appeal on a practical level. And Stockholm's famously clear water is such a visible and important element of the city's beauty that ecologically sound behavior makes perfect sense.

But there's an interesting dark side to this characteristic Swedish trait of conserving resources and behaving efficiently. Part of Stockholmers' reputation for chilliness toward strangers - sometimes even borderline rudeness - may be linked to their fondness for efficiency. People don't tend to waste a lot of time on social courtesies. Visitors from other countries often mention being taken aback by this. Swedes don't typically chat with strangers on the bus, for example, or apologize if they bump into someone on the street. But this restrained attitude isn't intended as rudeness. More likely it's based on a realization that deep friendships are, in fact, seldom formed with random passersby asking for directions or the person who happens to sit next to you on the bus.

One related theory argues that land-partition reforms beginning in the late 18th century ended up destroying village communities, leaving the Swedish people with a sense of isolation and self-reliance. This is reflected in such oft-cited proverbs as 'Alone is strong.' Swedes also tend to resist owing each other favors; situations that might produce indebtedness, such as buying rounds in a bar, are usually avoided. It may be a mostly socialist country, but in certain aspects it's every man for himself.

Ordning och Reda
It's hard to spend much time in Stockholm without hearing this phrase, the ubiquitous Swedish expression that translates roughly as "order and method" or "order and organizaton." Even if you don't hear it, you're bound to leave with some understanding of what it means. Ordning och reda practically defines the typical Swedish personality and way of life. Much more than just an expression, it's a neat and tidy three-word philosophy that most people apply to their everyday lives without even thinking about it. The basic idea is "a place for everything and everything in its place," but the concept extends far beyond mere objects. In the home, ordning och reda translates to a noticeable lack of clutter. Shoes are neatly arranged by the door, furnishings are sparse, and anything untidy is hidden away. But in a larger sense, when applied to the outside world, it refers to the proper way in which things ought to happen.

Get a Queue
One excellent example of ordning och reda is the queue system. Stockholmers line up for everything. There are places in the city where it's perfectly normal to see people standing in line in order to take a number from the queue machine so they can stand in line. The worst offense anyone can commit on Swedish soil is to jump the queue, particularly if you happen to be shopping at System Bolaget, the state-run liquor store. Stockholmers themselves will elbow past little old ladies on their way to take a number from the machine, but once they have it, the pecking order is written into the heavens and cannot be altered. (It can, however, be sold for profit; travelers have reported seeing early birds hit the queue-number machines as soon as a business opens in the morning, then sell their places in line to people in a hurry.) No matter what sort of business you hope to conduct in Stockholm, the first thing you should always do is look for the queue machine and take a number.

Writing on the Wall
Even Prince Eugen scribbled on walls; the painter prince's frescoes grace City Hall (Stadshuset). Graffiti in general hasn't reached quite that level of government approval, but some of Stockholm's most provocative underground artists have become local heroes. The best-known among them is Akay, whose work with graffiti and poster art evolved into larger projects, like setting up a miniature Swedish summer house (complete with picket fence and laundry line) on a traffic island between two major highways. His efforts to reclaim public space for the public, using guerrilla branding techniques that promote an idea without actually selling anything, have won Akay international fame and appreciation.

wkw is cool

...and so is DL. I was too far away to ask questions or take any pics, and I have 90,000 words to read and write this week and am lazy, so here's a link to one guy's review of the talk. Possibly more later.

wkw

Check it out! I think I'm going to faint:
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/03/14/wong-kar-wai-in-soho/

Outlaws in Pajamas

Eastwood wakes to the sound of pan pipes. He looks around....

Just tonight, I think maybe, For a Few Dollars More might be inching its way ahead of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. I mean, come on, it has Klaus Kinski in it. More twitching per second than has ever been captured on film before or since. It has also the toothless, rubber-lower-jaw old guy who is always, always a railridin' hobo, here playing an old-timer who's against trains. It has the world's most excellent (what do you call it?) footprint-off/bitch-slap combo. It has Eastwood, the tramp, shamelessly courting both Angel Eyes and Indio. And it has that eternal cigarillo, resourcefulness, manliness, a shield, just long enough to fit beneath the brim of his hat when it rains - a quality I love beyond reason and that, I admit, I may have mentioned before.

Anyhow. The first time I saw this film was during the Grindhouse Film Fest in Portland - sitting by the inimitable Sam Dodge Soule III - and his pal Dicky Dahl, whose name appears in the editing credits on the new Gus Van Sant film, Paranoid Park, about which more later - and when I saw it then, the film was HUGE but very, very pink. Smelled of vinegar at fifty paces. Not terribly macho I guess, but that kind of pink is easy to overlook once you get into it, and considering the grindhouseyness of it all.

Well, I don't know which I like better, when you get down to it. Still got a crush on Eli Wallach (the Ugly), but Indio is so sexy...and he's almost as hot in A Fistful of Dollars, which is pretty sweet but lacks the balls-out, fists-in-the-air glory of the second film, in my opinion.

Listen, mister, why'd you choose my place to commit suicide?

Even the Bank of San Francisco isn't that well protected!

I was worried about you. All alone, with ... so many problems to solve ....

Toupary

I am no longer in a bad mood.

Tonight I spent a couple of hours in the company of this guy:

(skip ahead to the 2-minute mark if it's boring to see him all shirtless)



Yep. Went to a screening of director Christophe Honore's new flim, Love Songs, and both the director and his main muse were there. I wanted to see the film anyway, because I really liked Dans Paris, the only other movie I've seen by Honore. Both movies are sort of eccentrically romantic, and sad, and weird, and of course extremely pretty to look at. Best of all, they're musicals. A lot of the dialogue comes across in these sweet, mumbly, nonchalant little songs, and something about the silliness of it (and, admittedly, the fact that everything sounds good in French) rescues all the precarious moments from ever seeming overwrought. So, as I said, I wanted to see the film anyway. But I also wanted to see Louis Garrel, because I wanted to find out if it's really possible for someone to look like that. And I'm sorry to report that it is. Alas. I'm ruined for life.

(He was also funny; during Q&A he referred to himself as a sex toy, and when some girl in the audience asked him, incredibly, to "sing for us," he amended his earlier statement to sex toy and marionette.) (But he sang anyway. Badly, on purpose.)

On a side note, I've decided that the French have to be beautiful, because otherwise they'd be invisible against a city like Paris. Man, that town looks good in anything.

The Parts Left Out of the Seattle Book, pt I

I'm in a lousy mood today, for some reason. Not that it matters.

The newest edition of the Seattle guidebook hit shelves recently, I'm told (haven't seen it yet, can't be blamed, folks, especially not for any mistakes you might find while say casually flipping through the color map section for example, not that you'll find any mind you), and it includes a nifty new feature: "Local Voices." Interviews with people who actually live in the city the guide is about. Yep. Some of mine didn't make the cut -- too dull for the Mid-Life Global Nomad demographic, I reckon. Bit flimsy on the service-journalism angle, too -- where to shop and eat and so forth. No, that's mean; really they just re-did the page count, and some of my intarviews didn't fit. Anyway. Here is one. Technically it's owned by LP, since I sold it to them for cash money, but I don't think they'll mind if the four of you who read this blog get a look at it. Enjoy:

Teh Lord Teh, IT consultant

A mild-mannered tech consultant by day, the young computer genius and weapons collector known as Teh Lr0d Teh represents Seattle's fringe culture. He hangs out at Teh Wetspot (www.wetspot.org), a BDSM community center in Lower Queen Anne. He is also a compelling argument in the case against the stressful, mind-degrading nature of work in the tech industry.

This interview was conducted entirely online. Please excuse the prelude:

'i hear lonely plan8 iz totally luztig 4 j00r bl00t. if tehy dont tap teh l33t-language audience they will go out of business. so you must turn to l-r0d t3h 2 save teh publih8ion. have you written anything about teh prevalence of kink sess in seattlul? note to teh editors: PH33R MEIN WRATH.'

What do you do for a living? I’m starting a Megacorporation/Nonprofit/lulz gorganization called 1-800-GOT-MEAT. We collect roadkill and donate it to local hick bigots for only a nominal cost. I get to play with meat all day and watch hicks salivate at gore. And I get to help the children - always my primary motivation in lyfe.

How long have you lived in Seattle? It depends on your definition of 'lived.' A week ago I thought to unleash the unifying power of roadkill, and since then I’ve felt exhilarated, overflowing with constant spiritual and erectile arousal. I’d say that I hadn’t really lived since then. So, a week.

What neighborhood do you live in? i just moved 2 seattlul proper (i live on teh wetspot'z bondage bed)

What's the best thing about your neighborhood? An overabundance of Ewok meat

How has the city changed since you moved there, and what do you think it will be like in five years? There were less Slaytanic cults when I moved here in 2000 BCE, but now they openly lust for blood. This is good for business, and my capital coffers have been overflowing. In 5 years I predict that ALL LIFE ENDS.

Any tourist traps that are worthwhile? There are several traps in my backyard that would work on tourists just fine. And if by worthwhile you mean beneficial for the children, then yes.

Dylan Ropes a Wild Turkey

No, that's not some kind of advanced yoga move; it's a scene from the coolest movie I've seen recently, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. It came out when I was 2 and James Coburn was hot and Kris Kristofferson had chubby little baby cheeks, believe it or not. Sam Peckinpah directed it, so death pervades, of course, as well as rivers of blood in a color I like to call Raimi red. Bob Dylan did the soundtrack, and he plays a shifty, knife-wielding outlaw pup who calls himself Alias.


It's a story about getting old and going straight, selling out to the Man and feeling crappy about it but doing it anyway because the world is moving on and you're too worn out to keep fighting. Salty old gunslinger Pat Garrett takes a job as sheriff, and the first thing he has to do -- the thing they hired him for -- is to bring down his pal Billy the Kid. The whole movie's a vast, gorgeous, gritty, epic love poem to the crumbling myths and disappearing rawness of the west; if you don't believe me try watching Slim Pickens' slow, gutshot walk to die at creekside without getting choked up.

It also has one of the best mini-odes to a willing dame ever grunted by a greasy barkeep:
"She got a ass on her ... like a forty dollar cow ... and a tit ... I'd like to see that thing filled with tequila."

Like I said. Poetry.




Moving on...

Pet peeves for today:

I hate it when people say things like "one of our finest novelists," or "among our best young actors," as if they are part of some mysterious corporation that owns the talent and creativity of artistic types. Annoying.

John Graham hates it when, every time someone looks through binoculars in the movies or on TV, the edges of the screen are blacked in to form the shape of two conjoined circles, like the eyeholes in a pair of binoculars. Think about it. When you look through binoculars, do you see the view in two conjoined circles? No, you don't. Through the magic of technology, you see it just as you would without the binocs, only closer. Amazing! (I'm watching the Oscars right now and a goofy little montage just reminded me of that.)

Also, straight from the supermarket checkout-line tabloids: I hereby ban the suddenly ubiquitous and totally barfy use of the term "bump" for preggy bellies. So disgusting.

Speaking of checkout-line tabloids, another outrage:
Here's the cover of the Feb 21 issue of Rolling Stone. Headline: "Britney Spears: Inside an American Tragedy." Hmm. Is Britney tragic, really?

And then, in tiny print over to the side, stuck between SHERYL CROW and ZEP TOUR UPDATE: "Heath Ledger." Yes...ever so much less tragic a loss than Britney's pop starlet career. (I mean, I know it's a music magazine, but still.)

Well, getting back to the realm of the indisputable: A very smart fellow recently gave me a list of Dylan songs I need to get in order to further my enlightenment. Now I know this may sound crazy, but I'm told you can "download" songs of music from the World Wide Web these days. Can this be true? I've had no luck with it so far. If any of you clever young people out there can tell me how to do it, I'd be much obliged.

misc

Heard on the television yesterday:
"Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex." I think that's good advice.

Today somehow I cut myself on the lid of a travel mug. See? I am fragile. I only seem tough.

This is old, but I love it (and it's relevant, in a way: cows, death). The website, Artliberated.org, is sort of a watchdog group defending art against the prudes of Scandinavia. It hasn't been doing much lately, though. Here's another pretty old case, probably only funny if you've seen the ubiquitous Kosta Boda glassware cramming every souvenir shop in Sweden and distributed equally among all citizens whether they like it or not. Fair's fair.

More later,

On the other hand...

There are two things I love about Valentine's Day:

Margo and my grandma. :)

OK, three things: Mom, too.

Thanks, guys!

VD Special

I've always hated Valentine's Day, but until last year I never had a legitimate reason. Now that I do (thank you, former teenage boyfriend, who ditched me that night to seduce someone cooler, and even borrowed my camera to blog about it afterwards!), I can enjoy hating it unreservedly. For many years I marked the holiday with a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine, because like Valentine's Day it was fake, cheap, pink, vile, bad-smelling and would rot your guts out. I am far too old for that now, and besides, the shop on the corner didn't have any. So this year I'm eating ramen (pink packet) and an apple (Pink Lady) while fantasizing about the long-dead PDX writer John Reed (pinko!). So far, so good.


Friday night was much worse. I watched a DVD (for research - swear), and when I ejected the disc, Bridget Jones's Diary was on TV. (The dorm dads hooked up my cable while I was away for Xmas, which required them to move the TV clear across the room and string up an elaborate series of wires, so I guess they mean it.) A more spineful person might've turned off the television and continued with her studies, but not me. I was sucked in. Bridget Jones. Too sick-making. Worst of all, it was the kind of all-American TV station that interrupts its movies with commercial breaks. Following are the types of products advertised on a Friday night to people watching Bridget Jones's Diary:

• champagne
• designer perfume
• yeast-infection goo
• vaginal lubricant
• Doritos.

Okay, TV people. Here is a tip I will give to you free of charge. Women who are at home at 10pm on a Friday night watching Bridget Jones's Diary do not as a rule need vaginal lubricant. Not unless it comes in one of those fancy holiday gift packs with various interesting accessories.

The champagne is fine, of course, although if you really want to know, whiskey would be better. As for the Doritos, well, yes, obviously.

More of Becky's homework

I have a lot of homework to do tonight. So, by way of stalling, and to appease the slavering hordes of dedicated readers and fans (hi Karl!), here's a record review I did awhile back. It's about Richmond Fontaine. (Gasps of amazed disbelief from the audience.) Hush, you. Anyway, I think I've reverted, since writing this, to having The Fitzgerald be my favorite RF album -- but I still really love that mariachi song at the end of 13 Cities. The whole thing is great, really.

Also, for my legions of fans in the UK, Willy's new novel is out: it's called Northline, also the name of an early song he wrote, and the girl in it, Alison Johnson, is the name of another song he wrote. And there's a video, I just found:



Anyhow. Read on, legions of fans, and buy the record or the book or even both. You won't regret it.

Richmond Fontaine
13 Cities

Say you're hitchhiking. It's hot. You've been thumbing rides all day and not a bite. You're about to give up and throw yourself across the yellow line when an old guy in a pickup stops. You get in. He cracks you a beer, says "Relax, kid, let me tell you a story." He doesn't ask where you're going; he knows it doesn't matter. He tells you a story. When your beer's done, he hands you a fresh one. The story gets a little better, a little sadder.

That's how it feels to come home at the end of the day and put on Richmond Fontaine's 13 Cities. Somehow the record comforts and relieves you even if you don't have any beer. Maybe it's because things aren't ever likely to get as bad for you as they are for the people Willy Vlautin writes about. RF's singer-songwriter is a master of the sad portrait. The band's 2005 album, The Fitzgerald, featured Vlautin essentially alone with a guitar, telling quiet stories in his humble way, with the ragged voice of an old barfly and the intonation of a 6-year-old. On The Fitzgerald most of the stories end badly. It's a beautiful album, but no comfort to a fragile soul.

13 Cities is not so brutally sparse and grim. That's not to say it's cheerful. With one exception, Vlautin's songs are as melancholy as ever; but this time he's not alone with his sadness. The band—Vlautin (guitars, vocals), Sean Oldham (drums, vocals), Dave Harding (bass), Dan Eccles (guitars) and Paul Brainard (pedal steel, piano)—recorded this album in Arizona with the Tucson band Calexico. The expanded cast of musicians lightens the mood considerably. All the joy on the record comes from the music, which provides on most of the songs a heartening counterbalance to the vocals.

The record opens with "Moving Back Home #2," announced by a Mexicali-style trumpet flourish. It's a fast-paced tune; the drums push it along, and it sounds happy, at least until you catch what Vlautin is singing: "I'm living in my mom's basement again / I come in at 4 am / She gets pissed / Gotta be up at 6 / We get into a fight / So I go out again." For a different band, the juxtaposition of a jaunty tune with lyrics about a hopeless loser who gambles all night might be ironic. But Richmond Fontaine is never ironic. It's just that Vlautin can laugh at himself, or his former self, and at the mistakes he's made and keeps making.

But he doesn't laugh at the other characters who stumble through his songs: toward them he is always kind. Vlautin's people are gamblers, drunks and wrecks, immobilized by circumstance or crushed by the weight of bad luck. But they're not bad people, and the songwriter holds out hope for them. He leaves an escape hatch, a way to imagine that, if things go right, maybe one day the people he's singing about will be better off. But it won't be easy.

In the slow, shuffling third track, "$87 and a Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse the Longer I Go," the narrator turns his back on a friend who's holed up in a motel room with an underage hitchhiker. To rescue the girl, he calls the police, then feels terrible for betraying his friend. Nobility is seldom noticed or rewarded in a Vlautin song. Another example is the harmonica-laced ballad, "Fell Into Painting Houses in Phoenix, Arizona," about a young house painter whose crew picks up a Mexican day-laborer: "We worked five days straight, then we didn't pick him up / and I knew that the kid had never been paid... I didn't show up the next day / I ain't shit, but I ain't that way." The claustrophobia in the song has nothing to do with physical space: though wide horizons stretch all around him, the music closes in and the narrator repeats through clenched teeth, "Get me outta here, get me out get me out of here."

Relief comes in the instrumental interludes, like "El Tiradito," a relaxed and sprawling breather that lets the desert scenery roll gently by in your mind. Then its steady ka-thunk eases into the ominous next track, "A Ghost I Became," about a guy so disenchanted he vanishes into the landscape.

Near the end there's a break in the gloom. "Four Walls" is a tiny moment of pure romantic exuberance that reveals all the previous sorrows as mere artifacts of passing bad luck. We don't need anything, the singer tells his girl; nothing bad can find us here. "We'll just lay around," he says, and the guitar tones rise up like church bells. "And our hearts will sing," and the bells ring faster, louder, until at the peak of their clamor he finishes the sentence, "like mariachis" -- and it's like church just let out.

Granted, the album ends on its saddest note, with "Lost in the World," but by then you already know—the band has already told you—that things might turn out OK after all.