God Break Down the Door – The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: This is a long one, but I did this to myself by putting Phoebe Bridgers, Soccer Mommy, and Bowie all in one week. You’ve been warned.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/11/26

“God Break Down the Door” – Nine Inch Nails

Noisier, more metal-adjacent music isn’t usually my forte. I used to hate most forms of industrial or metal music when I was younger, up until about high school. This was true for all but a few Nine Inch Nails songs (admittedly, I did love a handful of songs from Pretty Hate Machine in middle school…fitting, and also, “Head Like a Hole” will always be a banger). To this day, I still can’t decide how much I regret not seeing them with the rest of my family back in 2018, at a Red Rocks show where they ended up playing one of the only live performances of “The Perfect Drug” up until that point. Cruelly, it took me until a few years ago to like that song, too.

Nowadays, I can appreciate Trent Reznor much more as an artist, having gone from the throes of addiction to sobriety but still keeping true to his mission of making art to exorcise pain and create a safe space for those working through similar issues. Anybody with that mindset automatically has my respect. But of course, everything goes back to Bowie with me—I think I heard “I’m Afraid of Americans” around the same time as I started sort-of-kind-of liking Nine Inch Nails, and I don’t think there’s a way that you can come away from that experience without thinking that Bowie and Reznor are the coolest people on Earth. Hearing “God is an American” for the first time in the Trump era was certainly pivotal. But to hear of their relationship—Bowie taking Reznor under his wing, seeing pieces of his younger self in him and helping Reznor work his way out of his addiction and help his artistry blossom—is such a critical part of the Bowie and Nine Inch Nails story that a lot of Bowie fans who only fixate on the ’70s or ’80s woefully miss. The ’90s marked a turning point for Bowie musically and personally, with his no-holds-barred dive into experimental music and the peace of his private life, which allowed him to become that stable mentor for people like Trent Reznor, and many others afterwards. And then, of course, there’s the legendary tour they did together.

So understandably, Bowie’s death left an indelible mark on Reznor. Even before I got into Nine Inch Nails, I could understand that if anybody could, nay should cover “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” it was him. That’s not even mentioning his concrete song about grieving Bowie, “This Isn’t the Place.” Yet even if “God Break Down the Door” wasn’t directly about Bowie, it kinda still is, in its warped way. It’s a writhing mass of tentacles frenetically squirming ever outwards towards entropy. Reznor’s blares of saxophone are the most obvious Bowie (specifically Blackstar) callback and a connection point between them, as they both played the instrument in their younger years. But amidst all of the seemingly disparate aspects of the track—the writhing beats (almost goes into yoinky sploinky territory), the marimba, the persistent drone of it all—it creates something so singly whole. That fleeting beat of silence amidst Reznor’s droning and the explosive exorcism of sound that comes afterwards bottles a kind of feeling that I can only describe as a black hole being reversed, like all of the matter of the universe being shot back out from the point of oblivion. It’s the door that God’s broken down, from my interpretation. But to me, it’s not just the sound of Bowie that Reznor inherits: it’s the floodgates of creativity being busted open in the ’90s, wiggling free of all corporate and fan expectations to create something nobody expects.

It’s very succinctly summed up in this YouTube comment:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Redsight – Meredith Mooring – “God break down the door/Everything all at once/There aren’t any answers here/No, no, not anymore…”

“Jane” – mary in the junkyard

mary in the junkyard is a band I expect to come forward with something fresh lyrically, whether it’s feral people in the woods, reincarnated mice, or people turning into trees. Clari Freeman-Taylor has an eye for the left-of-center, the unloved creatures and inherent weirdness that reveals itself once you peer beyond the space between branches; her songwriting cradles spiders, mice, and impish creatures and nurses them back to health, patting them on the head when most people would run away and abandon them. So it’s no surprise that “Jane” is similarly unique. It hung in unreleased but often played live-limbo, where it was introduced by Freeman-Taylor as a love song about her period, who she named Jane and is “too annoying and honest.” Ain’t that the truth.

Writing affectionately about your period is a daring undertaking, given that it’s the bane of pretty much every AFAB person’s existence. But I think that the same tenderness Freeman-Taylor offers to the unloved creatures translated naturally to menstruation, which frequently makes you feel like an unloved creatures, and is a kind of unloved creature in her hands. The understated combination of electric guitar and Saya Barbaglia’s plaintive viola makes it feel like an apology, the sort of intimacy of cupping your hands over somebody’s chin as they weep. (Which, once again, very much a period feeling.) For me, it evokes the fear when I went through puberty as a young girl, developing at a rate that felt entirely too fast for the uncertain body I was in, doddering around like a foal: “It’s hard to be a woman, is it harder to be here?/It’s hard to be someone when everything is new.” To me, it’s both about that womanhood/AFAB experience as well as Jane herself being new in the world, emerging like some nocturnal creature every month. I never considered that my sentient period didn’t want to be brought into this world either. Maybe I’m the bad guy. Nobody’s having a good time here. But that’s where “Jane” finds sympathy, for both herself and Jane being constant, confused, and cramping companions.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Greenteeth – Molly O’Neill – to be honest, I haven’t exactly read many books that are a) about menstruation, or b) sentient periods, but Greenteeth gives me the tenderly, whimsically dark yet sympathetic feel of a lot of mary in the junkyard songs.

“Rings of Saturn” – Soccer Mommy

Have I gotten to the point where I’m ambivalent about Soccer Mommy? I don’t think so, but I think I’m dangerously close. “Rings of Saturn” is a nice song. That’s about it. It’s a nice Soccer Mommy song. But I feel like it’s not a huge leap from any of her other work. I feel like this could be an outtake from color theory, which isn’t necessarily a complaint. Yet with somebody like Soccer Mommy, I expect at least something new with each new release—there was the color-coded concept behind color theory, the experimental daring of Sometimes, Forever, and the acoustic grief cataloguing of Evergreen. Other than the production, there’s not much that separates “Rings of Saturn” from the rest; but I do enjoy the production, with its spacey, retro graininess. The lyrics are solid too—certainly relatable, and they would’ve been even more so when I was in high school. “Rings of Saturn” is perfectly fine, but I just wanted more. At worst, Evergreen’s tracks blended together, and I’m just afraid that it’ll happen again. Then again, back when she released “Shotgun,” it felt like she was playing it safe, and then came Sometimes Forever. So who knows? I want more from “Rings of Saturn” because I know she’s capable of something more. Tentatively, I’ll follow Soccer Mommy wherever this constellation leads.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

This Is the Year – Gloria Muñoz – “The stars, they hardly shine/In the city lights, but I/Point my finger to a halo in the sky, I see your light/Rings of Saturn, do you hear me when I cry?”

“‘Tis a Pity She Was A Whore” – David Bowie

Blackstar was always going to be an album that I needed to sit with. It took me years to even listen to it all the way through. A second time around, and I could barely handle the crushing weight of grief coupled with the ecstatic art-jazz-rock freakouts. And then I bought the record because it was within my self-imposed budget, a fine addition to my collection, etc., and that final piece clicked for me. Granted, most of the tracks still make me cry like a baby, but once I vomited up that initial onslaught of sadness, I could peek back and not just appreciate but genuinely enjoy the artistry behind it. It’s not that I didn’t get it before—even while I was actively weeping, I recognized all of the snatches of odd time signatures and how flooring pretty much all the lyrics are—but the immediacy of it had worn off.

I hate hearing the sound of breathing. Not even consciously heavy breathing, that’s obvious, but just any audible breathing. It’s very much a sensory issues thing, but hearing breathing (nay, any kind of mouth noises), chewing, sniffing, it all makes me fucking squirm. Something about it sets my perpetually askew nervous system on high alert. And that’s how “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” begins. David Bowie breathes into the mic, then licks his lips. You can almost hear how chapped they are. It’s laborious. The exhaustion, the energy sapped out of him, is immediately apparent in seconds, and even when the saxophones and pounding drums kick in, you can hear him heaving. Bowie never gave a statement as to what the lyrics were about: all he ever said about the track was that “if Vorticists wrote rock music, it might have sounded like this.” Keeping the art movement in mind, characterized by cubism, harsh angles, and secrecy, it’s very apt. But that no-frills, human panting and breathing inclines me to believe one of the more popular interpretations of the song; Bowie describes a woman (in quite disparaging terms) who “punch[es] him like a dude” and “steal[s] his purse with rattling speed”…what could said “whore” be if not cancer?

Even if the language is more sparse than the usual flowery, cosmic Bowie epic, “‘Tis a Pity” is an epic in every sense. There’s no shortage of aspects to pick apart. There’s the gender dynamic of the cancer personification, clearly marked as a woman but whose violence takes on distinctly masculine language (“Man, she punched me like a dude”). There’s the title, taken from a 1633 play by John Ford, which is only tangentially related to the song’s themes, but nonetheless contains that same undercurrent of violence. The literary references continue with an interpolation of Robert Southey’s Sonnet 1, part of a collection of poems condemning the Transatlantic Slave Trade, where Bowie gets “hold your mad hands.” (Thanks are due here for the no doubt exhaustive research from the blog Pushing Ahead of the Dames.) Through it all, it paints an image of Bowie as a frail boxer, battered but impossibly full of energy until his last breath. It’s a harrowing song, especially with that final ragged yelp he lets out at the end. He sounds beaten. And yet, he was ready to throw those creative punches in the ring until the bitter end.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The DSM-5 – American Psychiatric Association – we all need therapy after this, let’s be real…

“I Can’t Wait” – Phoebe Bridgers

Are you imagining me somehow serenely, sitting stationary while writing this post? Wrong. I’m still vibrating at the thought of Lost Weekend, mainly because I’ve got tickets to see Miss Phoebe (!!!!) very soon!! I’ve come back to the album constantly—easily one of my favorites of the year so far, and it only gets better every time I revisit it. This week’s pick was a real tossup—I could’ve easily gone with the enchanting slow dance (and brief Gracie Abrams diss) of “The Governor’s Waltz,” the bittersweet, country-fied healing of “Haunted,” or the visceral existential pleas of “As Above.” Now that I’ve had almost two months to sit with it, I think Lost Weekend represents the height of Phoebe Bridgers’s powers (no pun intended) so far. Dare I say that it’s better than Punisher? I do dare say it. She’s skyrocketed in fame and artistic ability, a rare combination; she’s only strengthened the emotional, raw pull in her lyrics without sacrificing a subtly adventurous spirit. The soundscapes have turned from artfully sparse to cosmically expansive, doffing shoegaze, country, and electronic hats with an ease that most musicians of her standing couldn’t attempt.

Yet I keep coming back to “I Can’t Wait.” There’s about a million puns I could make about this song and the fact that I can’t wait for the concert, but I’ll hold back. Another aspect of Lost Weekend that endears me is the fact that, in spite of the tragedy that led up to the album’s release, Bridgers has started finding peace of mind. Despite being labeled as such by the press and her fans, she’s frequently chafed against both a static sound and being pigeonholed as a sad girl; and, yes, while that’s part of why I love her, seeing her write songs of unabashed hope and love is like watching a depressed friend start healing and doing better for themselves. “Bobby” is the more obvious example, but “I Can’t Wait” hits me in the gut the most. With its juddering, harmonized sprint at the start, it’s brimming with anticipation. This time, it’s not the end-of-the-world prophecies of Punisher, but being excited for the first time about what’s on the horizon: romantically, emotionally. Bridgers paints herself as more than a little bruised and beat up, but she’s ready to run towards the finish line no matter how much dirt she’s got smeared over her bloodied knees: “I’m not good, but I’m better/Missed my cue, but whatever/It’s now or never.”

And of course, as if “I Can’t Wait” wasn’t one of Bridgers’s best already, it also solves one of the problems that she’s had for her whole career: her duet partners. She’s finally picked somebody with a lower vocal register than her to duet, and it actually works. They said it couldn’t be done…but if anybody could do it, it was obviously ~~Cameron Winter~~ uh [cough] excuse me, Son-John Johnson, my bad. The beat where the electronic skittering dissipates into folksy embers around a campfire, where Bridgers and Winter’s voices delicately intertwine, feels exactly like the song’s excellent music video; at that moment, the fly that the video’s POV has been from, gets gently cradled in Bridgers’s palms. It’s so secure, warm, and the moment that their voices coalesce feels like home, somehow. Incidentally, that’s where the real love song part of “I Can’t Wait” comes in, but that brimming, brilliant nucleus of hope and genuine excitement for the future gets me choked up. You can change your mind, but you can’t change mine…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Idolfire – Grace Curtis – “Baby, baby, if you leave me/Can you take me with you?/I can sit in the back seat…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and more importantly, happy National Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month!

I’m kicking off the occasion with a novel that’s been languishing on my TBR for way too long. I don’t remember where exactly I heard about it, but I was intrigued by the cover and the unusual premise. Though I wasn’t immediately familiar with the myths and fairytales that it drew from, Summer in the City of Roses stands as something uniquely itself, regardless of its inspirations.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Summer in the City of Roses – Michelle Ruiz Keil

Iph and Orr are inseparable. Ever since Orr began showing signs of anxiety, Iph has been his protector, making their way around Portland in the early ’90s together. But when their father sends Orr off to a wilderness camp without Iph’s knowledge, she’s beyond betrayed. Unbeknownst to Iph, Orr snuck off into the woods the minute that he arrived at the camp. Now on separate journeys to find their way back to each other, Iph and Orr will stop at nothing to reunite, no matter the bizarre trials they encounter on the way.

TW/CW: transphobia/deadnaming, kidnapping, substance abuse, animal cruelty, homophobia, domestic violence

First off: this is a weird book. It’s weirder than a lot of mainstream YA dares to get, which I greatly enjoyed. In a publishing landscape dominated by all manner of fairytale and myth retellings, Summer in the City of Roses dared to do something radically new, and while it wasn’t completely successful, it’s a bright spot of individuality in the YA landscape.

I wasn’t familiar with the myth of Iphigenia or the Brothers Grimm’s “Brother and Sister,” the two fairytales and myths that Summer in the City of Roses was based on; once I looked into them more, there were so many fun Easter eggs that were hidden throughout. But even without that context, it felt so much like a fairytale. The strange, winding nature of the plot, as well as the oddball characters that Iph and Orr encounter along their quest, were so archetypal, but beyond that, just pure fun. Ruiz Keil’s prose gave the novel a Wes Anderson feel, especially when it came to the narrative voice and the way the characters acted and spoke. (George felt very Rushmore to me.) There’s a wandering nonbinary Robin Hood type with a mini pitbull, a band of Riot Grrrls, covens of witches from San Fransisco—it’s just unabashedly ’90s and unabashedly quirky, at that. It’s just so charming all the way through. And though I’ve never been to Portland—much less in the early ’90s—Ruiz Keil’s love for the city shone through in every page. There’s a lot of fun references to the pop culture and music scene at the time, as well as past musical movements (BRIAN ENO AND OBLIQUE STRATEGIES MENTIONED!!) It’s a charming, punk fairytale dressed in flannel with the spirit of Riot Grrrl activism and siblingly love. Summer in the City of Roses is seriously one of a kind.

Iph and Orr are at the heart of Summer in the City of Roses, and their relationship was written so tenderly. Iph’s uncertain yet determined spirit was so poignant, and Ruiz Keil captured that feeling of being a teenage girl at the crossroads of life so well. Her experiences with her mixed-race identity, with a Greek father and a Mexican mother who was rather secretive about her culture and past, resonated so much with me as a mixed-race person with Latine heritage. Orr was so wonderful, and his sensitive was dealt with so well; I also loved seeing both Iph and Orr casually come into their queerness. What stood out to me though was that despite there being all of this amazing representation, Ruiz Keil didn’t automatically translate it into modern terms that would’ve been out of place in the ’90s. (She talks in the author’s note about not choosing to use any pronouns for George, as nonbinary identity wasn’t as well known/understood in the mainstream ’90s culture as it is today, although it existed without question.) Iph and Orr are decidedly queer, and Orr is decidedly neurodivergent; a less deft author would’ve inserted all manner of 2020’s therapy/PSA-speak into the narrative, but Ruiz Keil toed the line between modernizing their identities while still respecting them as identities that existed in the ’90s, and have always been a part of history.

Naturally, a book dealing with the Riot Grrrl movement and the punk/activist culture of Portland in the ’90s would deal with a lot of social issues, and Summer in the City of Roses certainly did. Not a lot of YA literature deals with subjects surrounding sex work, especially considering the audience; but I like that Ruiz Keil touches on this, and humanizes sex workers and explains a lot of the rationale behind the activism. There are discussions about homophobia and transphobia, Latine and mixed-race identity, spirituality, and unhoused people, but through it all, what made it so meaningful was that Ruiz Keil took such a great deal of care in humanizing all of the marginalized groups she talks about. That being said, a lot of these discussions are delivered in a kind of PSA style at the worst of times; this style is also applied to any other subject that Iph learns about, which made some of the discussions drag for me. However, this is YA, and for a teen audience unfamiliar with these subjects, it might be more beneficial. Chances are, it was only an issue for me because I’ve aged out of the target audience.

A lot of the reviews for Summer in the City of Roses commented on how jarring the transition in this novel was from fairytale-inspired realistic fiction to straight-up magical realism. To be fair, I saw that it had been tagged on the Storygraph as magical realism, so I had some idea of what I was in for. Once I got to this portion of the story, the genre transition wasn’t that abrupt to me: Ruiz Keil’s writing already had the air of a fairytale, even if the actual fantastical elements didn’t come in until the eleventh hour. My problem was more about their execution. The hard left turn into fantasy was quite messy; it’s clear that Ruiz Keil had a lot of ideas and a lot to say about them, but they all tangled into a jumbled mess at the end. The ending had the potential to be so powerful, but everything was so tangled that the message got lost. I feel like part of the issue is that it needed more time to breathe—50 more pages would’ve done the trick for making sure that this element felt substantially integrated into the narrative. Summer in the City of Roses was just shy of a 4-star read for me, but this mishandled ending was why it didn’t get the full 4 stars from me in the end.

All in all, a daringly weird and ambitious novel with lots of aspirations—most of them fulfilled, but with some unfortunately left in pieces. 3.75 stars!

Summer in the City of Roses is a standalone, but Michelle Ruiz Keil is also the author of All Of Us With Wings and contributed to the anthology Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. LeGuin.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Tag: God Break Down the Door

Sunday Songs: 10/11/26

Book Review Tuesday (9/15/26) – Summer in the City of Roses