Interview

This year marks a decade since the beloved New York based Magnetic Fields rocketed to public (and critical) consciousness, care of the behemoth 69 Love Songs. Often called the voice of Noughties indie-rock and the acerbic conscience of modern Manhattan, the Fields' singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt has spent ten years demurring to the endless, hoary descriptors the music press have foisted upon him–"musical curmudgeon", "poète maudit", "lyrical genius", et cetera.  Merritt's insistence on a non-biographical appreciation of his lyrically trenchant and, often confessional, songwriting style has deepened the mystery among critics and fans who puzzle on the secret meaning of his verses. The Magnetic Fields' new album, the aptly titled Realism, might provide a musical solution of sorts to the Merritt quandary, although one likely not to appease the band's diehard fans. I spoke to Merritt recently in New York about  Realism's sound-world, the all-important use of reverb, and nostalgia (or lack thereof). (PHOTO CREDIT: MARCELO KRASILCIC)


ERIK MORSE: There was an interview recently in which you said that had considered naming the last two records True and False–instead of Distortion and Realism–but you ultimately couldn't decide which one should be named True and which named False.

STEPHIN MERRITT: Well, I don't agree that one is more real than the other.  That is why I called them Distortion and Realism, because I didn't want to be seen as actually using the labels True and False.  Distortion is actually accurate on some level in the lay sense, because one has an internal image of what an instrument should sound like and when they don't sound that way they are considered distorted.  But, in fact, an electric guitar is no more distorted when it gets "fuzzier" than the way it was before it got "fuzzier".

MORSE:  How does the atmosphere or environment impact how you compose?

MERRITT: I wrote most of 69 Love Songs by splitting my time between St. Dymphna's and Dick's Bar.  I would sit for eight hours drinking tea at St. Dymphna's until I was thoroughly caffeinated and then drink for eight hours at Dick's Bar until I was ready to go to sleep. I don't generally remember where I wrote a song. I don't think that place is particularly important for me.  For one thing, I rarely finish a song in one place. I generally don't finish a song in one sitting.  And the places where I write songs, gay bars, are fundamentally the same place. Generally I am listening to "I Will Survive" or "Ring My Bell" and eavesdropping on the same old conversation. I may as well be writing in airport lounges as they are so much the same.

MORSE: Have you written in an airport lounge?

MERRITT: Probably.
 

MORE »

Lambchop's Kurt Wagner has often been hailed as indie rock's answer to William Percy or James Agee–a gentle Southern soul who rhapsodizes on the sinister beauty and odd characters who pass by his porch. Born in Brooklyn but transplanted to Nashville at an early age, Wagner began developing the Lambchop collective–originally called Posterchild–in the mid 80s, precisely when the music capital of the Midsouth was in need of reinvention.  With 94's I Hope You're Sitting Down/Jack's Tulips, released on Merge Records, the band debuted its trademark hybrid of countrypolitan, blues, and indie lounge.  In the subsequent two decades, Lambchop swelled in size, often comprising dozens of area musicians who contributed strings, vibes and synthesizer. But Wagner remained Lambchop's songwriting heart, meaty pate (always crowned with a farmer's cap) and bleating voice.  During a recent celebration of Merge's twentieth anniversary at Carrboro, North Carolina venue Cat's Cradle, Wagner and company electrified the audience with a rousing forty minute set of some of their most popular songs. The performance was recently released by the label as a recording and full-length video as Live at XX Merge. I recently contacted Kurt Wagner in Nashville to chew the fat about Lambchop. (PHOTO CREDIT: TOM SHEEHAN)


ERIK MORSE: Do you think your background as a Southerner is often overemphasized by critics as a way to interpret Lambchop's music–as if every song is a Flannery O'Connor fable?

KURT WAGNER: You know, I don't look at being a Southerner as much of a big deal. It's just where I happen to hail from.  The things I write about could be specific to anyone's geographic perspective.  I'm like a happy pig in shit and I find shits everywhere.

MORE »

David Chang is best known for delivering perfectly executed, unpretentious comfort food at his wildy popular fleet of Momofuku restaurants in New York City. During a recent book signing at San Francisco's Sur la Table (he was in town to promote his new cookbook Momofuku, co-written with Peter Meehan), Chang flipped through local newspapers in search of escort ads. Armed with a glue stick, he individually pasted the provocative photos on the inside cover of each cookbook, adding a little fun to the usually ho-hum autographing process.  As with his cooking, when Chang meets his fans, he likes to deliver something extra. 

Chang took a few minutes to talk to me about Sichuan hotpots, Kevin Smith, and what he looks for in a woman.


ERIK MORSE: I really like the idea of food tours, where you pick one food, and take one day to visit all the places where a great version of that food can be found.  If you were to do such a food tour, what food would you pick and what culinary destinations would you visit?

DAVID CHANG: I would do Sichuan hot pots and I would go to all the Sichuan restaurants throughout New York. I'd go to Flushing, Chinatown, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Spicy & Tasty and all the Grand Sichuans. There's probably about fifteen restaurants we'd have to check out.

MORSE: Have you ever done such a food tour before?

CHANG: Oh yeah. It's great for groups–and sweating heavily.

MORSE: Favorite vegetable?

CHANG: Daikon

MORSE: You use a lot of eggs in your cooking. Many people say that a great chef can be judged on his ability to perfectly cook an egg.  Would you agree with that, and what's your favorite way to cook an egg?

CHANG: I like eggs. My favorite way of cooking eggs is old school French. I love them soft boiled. I think you can probably make a good judgement call [about the quality of a chef] well before they actually even cook the egg. The process and organization leading up to cooking the egg can tell you a lot about the cook.

MORSE: If you had to pick a genre or period of time in film that embodies your cooking, what would it be?

CHANG: I really don't know. I think most people would probably say we were like fucking Kevin Smith: overrated and terrible. I like Kevin Smith, but it's sort of like anyone can do it.   

MORSE: What do you look for in a woman in terms of what she can do for you with food and cooking?

CHANG: I don't know. I just found out signing today that a girl I dated a couple of years back just got married. I mean, what the fuck? It's always a shock. I don't know.

MORSE: Is food a big part of the courting process for you?

CHANG: I have no idea.  I guess the question is can she deal with a neurotic weirdo like myself.  Not the other way around.

MORE »

Possibly the only openly gay author from his native Morocco, the young Abdellah Taïa has chosen a vocation of literary transgressor and cultural paragon. Beginning with his second novel, Le Rouge du Tarbouche [The Red Tarboosh] published by French press Editions Séguier in 2005, the soft-spoken son of a civil servant began openly challenging Moroccan state laws aimed at silencing gay culture. A cover-story in the influential French-Arab journal Tel Quel followed, with the caption reading: "Homosexuel, envers et contre tous" [Homosexual, against all odds]. During the resulting public furor, and, amid calls for the author's indictment for heresy, Taïa composed the very personal L'armee du Salut [Salvation Army], a bildungsroman of his youthful dreams and indiscretions set in Rabat, Tangier, and Geneva. Along the way he introduces and confronts the figures that most affected his formative love-life: an elusive mother, an omnipotent brother, and a Swiss lover. (PHOTO: ABDELLAH TAÏA, COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)

Now published in English by academic samizdat Semiotext(e), Salvation Army is a valuable contribution not only to queer fiction but to North African diaspora literature as well.  A resident of Paris over the last decade, Taïa has joined the column of Moroccan expatriates–Tahar Ben Jelloun and Abdelkebir Khatibi, among others–who cast a telescopic eye over the thorny and often violent ideological interchange between postmodern Europe and postcolonial Africa. But Taïa's words are not scrawled with the bellicose politics of a partisan; rather, they are auguries of a familial world imbued with both magic and poverty; lilting and resolute; a prose of stark divinity and apostasy. 

We recently contacted Taïa during his reading tour of the US and asked him to share his thoughts on the state of literature, the sexual politics of the Arab world, and the role of cinema in his writing.


ERIK MORSE: The first chapter of L'armee du Salut painted such a vivid landscape of your childhood, particularly how you first became aware of sex almost through a kind of familial osmosis.  Can you describe a bit more about this house which plays such a fundamental role in the book?

ABDELLAH TAÏA: Hay Salam is the name of the neighborhood where I grew up. It is located in a city called Salé, near the Moroccan capital Rabat. Salé is known in the Moroccan imagination for its 17th and 18th century pirates who used to attack the Christian ships sailing through the Atlantic. I lived there from 1974 until 1998. Everything I have known about the world comes from this city and this neighborhood. Everything I want to put in my book is also coming from this world.  The house where I lived there was very small, only three rooms for eleven people. One room for my father, the second for my older brother, Abdelkebir, who exerted a big influence on me, and the last one for the rest of the family: my mother, my six sisters, my little brother and me. Life for me still revolves around these three rooms. The tastes, the smells, the images, the ideas of fear and transgression are all coming from this house, this poor family that I love and hate at the same time. For many years, we were really poor, we didn't have enough food and we fought with each other a lot.  The power structures within the family were a mirror of  the dictatorship Morocco was living under at that time.

MORE »