Music review by Kirsten Imani Kasai
Mr. Shy, Superstar, New Soul Records 2006
Blenderize Wham and Jamiroquai with a tasty assortment of British club hits, sprinkle with chocolate-soul jimmies and serve the remixes on a Myspace Ipod player, and you’re enjoying Mr. Shy’s debut album. Fun, peppy and light-hearted, Mr. Shy whips up fluffy, Soft-Serve melodies that are made for dancing. Superstar is the perfect backdrop for an informal house party, or possibly, a Target commercial.
The album is consistent and each song is a bubbly confection. Superstar has such a positive themes of love and happiness, the CD should come with a party package of glitter, stickers and a hit of Ecstasy.
The only drawback is that the album sounded slightly off to me, as though it had been inexpertly mixed. Even manipulating the bass on my equalizer failed to give me the heavy back-beat Superstar thinly promises. My windows didn’t rattle, but I found myself hitting the replay button a few times, so that I could sing along with the catchy lyrics (except Cream of the Crop, which in my mind has become simultaneous with canned cream corn and reminds me of a story about said corn, two young guys, an old pervert and a glass table). Check out Mr. Shy’s very cool myspace site, and buy a copy of the CD to keep on rotation. http://www.myspace.com/mshy
Twins, Marcy Dermansky. William Morrow. 2005.
Polarity, magnetism and the inescapable orbits of family that bind us to our kin is the subject of Marcy Dermansky’s novel “Twins”. Identical twins Chloe and Sue are polar opposites–the good girl and bad girl respectively, and the conflicting desires between Chloe’s yearning for a life independent of her sister and Sue’s demands for total immersion are deftly detailed by Dermansky’s sparse, heated prose. Typical teenage themes of longing, conformity, rebellion and discovery are doubled and play out against a lonely backdrop of dysfunction. Themes of loss, seeking, rage and yearning (for love, for attention, for a ‘normal’ life) ring true as each sister struggles to define herself despite the reputation of her twin. Each girl sheds identities like snakeskins, searching for something that fits and transform her imagined ugly insides into something socially acceptable and beautiful.
Chloe and Sue’s mutual agonies and abandonment grip the reader, and you find yourself desperately cheering each small success they make as they stumble through neglected households and into the arms of someone who will at last, care about them. Reading Dermansky’s novel is like being blackmailed into becoming the confidante of the weird girl at school. Fascinating, dark and more than a little creepy, she is unashamed to spill her deepest secrets. She knows that no matter what happens, you’ll come back to the confessional for another dose of her bittersweet communion, and that you’ll eventually grow to like, or even love, her.
Twins is a fast, heated read, and Chloe and Sue will linger in your imagination for days, reminding us that all of the experiences that have shaped us still lurk below the surface, no matter what masks we wear to make ourselves look pretty.
http://marcydermansky.com/
you’ll definately know if it becomes official. if they’re just thinking about it then maybe not, but if they’re to go ahead and start the remodeling to sell them as condos they have to take them off the rental market and to do that they have to give all the tenants a packet with info from the state. mine was in a plain brown manilla folder and came over 6-months before I got the relocation check.
San Diego’s condo conversion market is over saturated now though. It went from no inventory on the market in 2003 to so many now that companies have to put guys with big arrow-signs on street corners saying “CONDOS 4 SALE!” to direct buyers to them. so if they haven’t already started I doubt they’ll go ahead with it at this late stage.