Better Than Friday - 66

Hi ya'll, Happy Friday the 13th. 

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. 

1. A Book I'd Like to Read - The Skin by Curzio Malaparte 

This is the first unexpurgated English edition of Curzio Malaparte’s legendary work The Skin. The book begins in 1943, with Allied forces cementing their grip on the devastated city of Naples. The sometime Fascist and ever-resourceful Curzio Malaparte is working with the Americans as a liaison officer. He looks after Colonel Jack Hamilton, “a Christian gentleman . . . an American in the noblest sense of the word,” who speaks French and cites the classics and holds his nose as the two men tour the squalid streets of a city in ruins where liberation is only another word for desperation. Veterans of the disbanded Italian army beg for work. A rare specimen from the city’s famous aquarium is served up at a ceremonial dinner for high Allied officers. Prostitution is rampant. The smell of death is everywhere.

Subtle, cynical, evasive, manipulative, unnerving, always astonishing, Malaparte is a supreme artist of the unreliable, both the product and the prophet of a world gone rotten to the core.

- Amazon

2. The Greatest Live Joy Division Track 

I love Joy Division. Novelty is one of their best tracks, but this is the best version. 

Absolutely pummeling, really captures what the band must have been like live, as opposed to their albums, which are great, but far slower/atmospheric/dreary. 

3. There's a Ghost in my House 

R. Dean Taylor. 

"remains one of the most underrated acts ever to record under the Motown aegis."

You ain't kiddin. This might be the best song I've heard this year. 

4. Booksellers struggling in Paris 

Important, but sad to read about. 

5. Experimental film with Einsturzende Neubauten 

I think @nate posted this on the discord not long ago - Thank you very much! Brings back memories. 

Halber Mensch is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. 

The performances of Armenia and Sehnsucht literally changed my life. 

Legendary. Impossibly cool. 

Bonus: The Ciardi translation of Dante's Inferno recommended to me 

I still haven't read it, and I've been told this one provides helpful historical/literary information. 

Thanks Giulia!

Be honest - Yes or No?

Wabbits.