Music
Beach Beach Beach Beach Beach Beach
So before the contrarianly calendared American Labor Day arrives, let's figure... who was king or queen of the beach this summer? A redemptive LP from Wavves dude or the cute dreamsicle smooth of Best Coast gal? Or fuck, almost forgot the last Beach House. Anyway, I can relate to Ms. Best Coaster running off to L.A. after NYC's Eugene Lang since I could only put up with their '91 apex PC-ness for a semester before fleeing to a chiller coast…..if you consider chill the L.A. of Frisk era Dennis Cooper, ha). Anyway, the Angeles itself tis the best, yes, as BC's chanteuse would have it. Ariel Pink, who we've already mentioned, didn't have to wave the flag too loud to represent an inherited Van Dyke Parks style in the dog days of 2010. And if you want something pretty and nonspecific, come out of Bill Murray's sub for some more Seu Jorge covers, or the Afro-rhythms of The Budos Band. Sorry, am too lazy to be coherent, just beating the heat y'all. That's a wrap. Now I'm gonna go plug my head or read a book. BTW, oh yeah, The Books new one is the best album out of the 2010 summer bunch.  But truly, lately, just staying inside with Chris Hitch-22 Hitchens, contemplating cancer. Remember the sunblock, yo (did I just say yo? Ohhh..). -CM

Book
Camden Joy: Palm Tree 13
I was first introduced to Camden Joy's writing by The Greatest Album Ever Told, his beautifully letter-pressed screed about Frank Black's Teenager of the Year. Published not long after the album's release, it presaged both the format and goals of the 33 1/3 series by about eight years. The book's unreliable narrator details the innumerable cultural and historical references of Black's 1994 short-attention-span epic. In the works that followed, Joy continued to meld oddball fiction with painstaking pop-historical research. The results are bizarre and potent, often detailing the brutality of rock's boy's club comradery and the agony of fans' obsessions. The most successful of his novels, Palm Tree 13 begins as a western starring Glen Frey of the Eagles competing in a buffalo round-up. The book jump-cuts into 1970s Los Angeles with a complex and sympathetic portrait of David Geffen, Don Henley and James Taylor. There is nothing else quite like this. -Ben Bush

Film
Trash Humpers
A sexual, incantatory, violent nightmare. Four devils wander through a largely deserted rural landscape and its interiors destroying objects, tap dancing, doing yoga, humping trash receptacles, interacting with a handful of residents and filming it all. The dialogue, such as it exists is both childlike and abusive. It often feels like the spewing of a mind unfettered by thought. The internal spaces are largely decrepit and more often than not serve as locals in which the trio of trash humpers torture and murder the inhabitants. The scenes out of doors at night feel like they take place in one enormous claustrophobic space. The day feels like and empty shadow of night. Rachel Korine's makeup literally makes her appear as a corpse come alive and her close ups in the final scene are what make it as deeply disturbing as the most realistic nightmare you've ever had. A horror movie minus all the filters that 'tell' you to be horrified like music and effects and editing, Trash Humpers is deeply magical, and Harmony Korine's purest film to date. -Mark Gluth