I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KOPECKY FAMILY BAND-Embraces EP (2008).

I learned about Kopecky Family Band from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.  When I investigated further, I found that I could download this EP for free. I compared their Tiny Desk show favorably to The Head and the Heart.  This earlier EP has a bit more punky edge to it (as their other stuff may as well–Tiny Desk doesn’t really lend towards punk).

And so this EP leads me to compare them more towards Stars.  But perhaps we’ll call them a more acoustic version of Stars.  There is some wonderfully intense musical construction on this EP, and the dynamic of the duel vocalists really bring great tensions.

This is a wonderful EP.  The strings belie the rather heavy chords  (especially on “Trainwreck”) and the harmonies throughout are really infectious.

[READ: June 30, 2011] “A Mouthful of Cut Glass”

I’ve really enjoyed Tessa Hadley’s recent stories in The New Yorker.  So I decided to go back through their archives and read the other stories of hers that they have published.  It turns out that she has been published in the New Yorker since 2002.  But many of the earlier stories were collected in her previous collection which I’ll read one of these days.  But rather, I started with the first ones that have yet to be collected.

“A Mouthful of Cut Glass” is a conflation of two expressions, neither of which I was familiar with: “talking through a mouth full of plums” and “an accent like cut glass.”  The malaprop came from the protagonist’s boyfriends’ mother.  And yet, I say protagonist as if Shiela is the real protagonist.  The story quite clearly opens with Neil.

In 1952 Neil was born into a very poor household.  But over the years, he was able to rise above his sattion and become a successful University student.  It was at University that Neil met Sheila.  Sheila grew up in a vicar’s house with a gaggle of brothers and sisters.  The two of them hit it off very well and began a serious relationship.

The bulk of the story comes in two scenes: the first is when Neil brings Sheila home to meet his parents.  The second is when she brings him home to meet hers.  As anyone who has met a significant other’s parents for the first time knows, all dynamics that you’re used to from your S.O. suddenly change.  You see your S.O. in a different light and you yourself act differently as well.

What I liked about this story was that we see both sides of the coin. What’s unexpected about the story is that we see Neil’s family from Shiel’as perspective…as the outsider.  And yet, when we go back to Sheila’s house, we stay with her perspective (the narrator is third person, but we are closer to Sheila).  So we get to see her compare his family with hers and, more specifically, the way he acts with his family and hers.

The ending suggests that things didn’t go very well, but it’s unclear exactly what’s going to happen next for them.  This was a very relatable story of young love.