SOUNDTRACK: CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG-KEXP in studio May 11, 2010 (2010).
Charlotte Gainsbourg is a fascinating individual. Between her acting and her singing, she’s had quite a life. And even moreso since she had a near fatal accident.
That accident formed the nexus of her album IRM. And this interview and performance is done in support of that disc. IRM was made with Beck. Beck’s not here, and the songs are more stripped down, but they sound really good in this format.
Gainsbourg sings the Beck-sung-on-IRM “Heaven Can Wait” and really makes it her own. The other three songs here work very well in this more acoustic setting. “Me and Jane Doe” is practically acoustic already and “Time of the Assassins” and “Trick Pony” are reworked very well. And Charlotte is a charming interviewee as well.
It’s another excellent in-studio performance from KEXP.
[READ: March 31, 2011] “The Dead Are More Visible”
I read all of The Walrus stories when I received the magazines. I wondered when I would completely recognize a story when re-reading them now. Well, this was the first one that I remembered parts of vividly. And why not–there’s a search for a missing eye on an ice hockey rink. That’s hard to forget. However, I didn’t remember the ending and in fact, my memory added many more details than actually occurred in the story.
The beginning of the story, which is very different from what I just described, was less memorable but perhaps more interesting. The story opens with a woman reflecting about her graveyard shift job. In this case the job is literally a graveyard shift, because the park she works in has a graveyard within it. However, her job is not really scary–she is there to make the ice for the upcoming skating season. It takes several nights of very cold weather and she must go out in all her gear and fill up the rink, several tousand litres of water at a time.
While the ice settles, her time is her own–to listen to music and read. She gets a few hundred pages read a night (dream job!) She prefers romance and horror novels. The introduction of horror novels into the story foreshadows a bit about the scene ewith the eye later on, although for this is not a horror story.
In fact, the story introduces a second character who is not so much scary as, well, maybe a little scary. There is an obelisk in the park, near the graveyard. The man has been staring at the obelisk for hours (in freezing weather). He informs the protagonist that the dead do not like the obelisk and that he is going to try and move it (it weighs several tons). He will move it with his mind and then disintegrate it. She nods as one does in that situation, but determines that since he hardly moves from his spot he is not a danger .
And indeed, he is out there for sevearl nights, ignoring her and focusing on the obelisk. But on the third night, a group of drunken men approach. They begin to hurl abuse at the man, and when the protagonist intervenes, they turn their attack on her. And that’s where the scariness sets in.
The story is pretty dark, but the final line is the most surprising part of all, when we see the story change its focus and in a wonderfully introspective way. If you can put up with a little grossness, this is a really great story.
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