I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEARS-Live on QTV (2008).

The Dears are a wonderful band from Montreal. They create epochal noise, make concerts that are unholy messes (and yet totally amazing) and they seem perpetually about to self-destruct.   Murray Lightburn, the singer and song writer of the band is has an amazing voice and great songwriting skills.  They create full blown orchestral rock, but they’re not afraid to totally rock out (see the 20-minute live version of “Pinned Together Falling Apart” on their live album.)

These three tracks are acoustic and totally stripped down.  It’s just Murray on guitar and his bandmate (and wife) Natalia singing backing vocals.  These three songs come from the album Missiles.  Although I am partial to their over the top renditions, these stripped down version showcase how great the songs themselves are.

“Dream Job” is a slow track with limited backing vocals.  “Lights Out” is a bit faster with some really great chord changes.  And finally, “Money Babies” is an amazing duet, really letting Natalia harmonize brilliantly.

You can hear more songs from The Dears at All Songs Considered.

[READ: January 11, 2011] “Meet You at the Door”

This is easily my favorite story in The Walrus in years, possibly ever.  It’s also one of my favorite stories that I’ve read in a long, long time.  It has so much to recommend it: it is wonderfully paced and it is really engaging.

The basic story is of a twenty-something black man who must travel to Gull Lake, Saskatchewan to start a job at a railroad junction house.  But that simple plot doesn’t do any justice to the multifaceted aspects of the story’s construction.

First, the position requires excellence in typing (relays that come from the main train location must be typed on an old manual typewriter in carbon.  With no typos.  And they must be typed fast!  Split second decisions must be made and any errors could be fatal.  So the employee must be smart and skilled (there’s a 75% failure rate on the test).

When the narrator passes the test he must ship off to Gull Lake that night.  And, this being “in the age of dinosaurs” the narrator is carrying his portable typewriter, a guitar and a huge afro.  And he needs a place to stay.  Fast.

He’s obviously not well received at first, until we meet the lady who will take him in.  And she is the second great aspect of this story.  She is a wonderful character (and could easily have many more pages written about her, but Hill is concise which really moves the story along).  She sizes him up, deems him worthy, and lets him have the spare room.

The third aspect of the story is the train technical side.  I didn’t know anything about how train junctions worked, and I wasn’t particularly interested in learning.  But I will say that Hill wrote just enough (and very well) to really pique my interest in the subject: the skill, the timing, the danger.  It was fascinating.

The final aspect that was great was also about race, but in a very different way.  It functions as the climax of the story: two disembodied voices communicating. Communicating over a difficult job, over bettering yourself and over differences.  All knowing that they are under a huge time constraint.

The story is uplifting, a little shocking and, in fact, quite funny.  The story isn’t very long and yet he packs it full of so much unforgettable detail.  I haven’t even mentioned the whole subplot of why he is such a good typist and what happened to the friend who helped him become so good…a subplot which actually drives the narrator, so maybe it’s not even just a subplot).

I’ve never read any fiction by Lawrence Hill before but this story was so great that I’ll certainly put him on my authors to watch list.  You can read it here.