I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: REAL ESTATE-Tiny Desk Concert #202 (March 12, 2012).

I enjoyed some Real Estate songs, but i never listened to their whole albums.  I thought this Tiny Desk show would give me more sonic information about them.

This three song set is very pleasing.  The music is soft and nonabrasive, with a very smooth feel (as you can see they are dressed in sweaters and cardigans, so this is not really a shock).  It’s poppy without having any real hooks.  They remind me of a less catchy Guster or a less dramatic Smiths (“Green Aisles,” especially for the bass and guitar solo) or gentler Death Cab for Cutie (“Municipality”).

There’s nothing to radically distinguish these three songs (radical is not a word that would apply to Real Estate), although “Green Aisles” has a few more dynamic moments (mostly from the change in drum patterns).

This review sounds like I didn’t like the set, but that’s not true.  As I said, it’s very pleasant.  And sometimes pleasant is what you want.

You can hear it here.

[READ: March 11, 2012] Same Difference

First Second continues to publish some of the most beautiful and thought-provoking graphic novels around.  This is a republication of a story that first appeared in a collection (and proceeded to win an Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz Award).

The story is about Simon and his close friend Nancy.  It opens with them in a Vietnamese Restaurant in Oakland, CA.  The first scene of the book is wonderfully drawn–we look in on the characters through a fish tank–fish are practically littering the panels–it’s very cool.

The two of them are with their friend Ian and they are shooting the breeze, talking nonsense.  And then Simon sees a woman that he knew from high school.  She is sitting at the bus stop and Simon wants to, but can’t, talk to her.  Her name is Irene, she seems sad, eyes downcast looking at the ground.  And then Simon reveals that she is blind.

In high school, he and Irene were very close.  He helped her out, described films to her in class, and “rescued” her from bullies.  And then she invited him to a Sadie Hawkins dance.  He doesn’t like her that way, so he lied to get out of it.  She never found out about the lies, but it has haunted him for the last seven years.

Later, Nancy figured out the truth of the matter, and even though we the readers probably guessed it as well, it still hit hard when it was spoken aloud.

Nancy, meanwhile, has a strange, possibly cruel story of her own.  Some time ago she and her roommate started receiving mail for a (Presumably previous tenant) named Sarah from a guy named Ben Leland.  Like every single day.  Finally after a month, Nancy was compelled to open a letter.  And what she saw was sad and weird and compelling.  Ben was basically writing Sarah an intense, spooky love letter from a sad and lonely man.  Like every single day.

Nancy finally wrote back to him under Sarah’s name saying she was moved by his letters and wanted to get back together (Ben lives about 40 minutes away in Simon’s hometown).  As we enter the scene, Sarah has just received a package from Ben.  And it is either crazily sweet or totally psycho–he sent her a roll of raffle tickets and wrote a message on each one (each ticket redeemed for something nice from him), a Ben Hur VHS case that he altered to say Ben & Hur. A box of cereal altered to say Life with Sarah, etc.

Nancy feels bad for what she’s done, but she’s also still fascinated.  When she realizes that Ben lives in the Simon’s home town, she insists they drive there immediately (even though Simon has real misgivings about the town and doesn’t really want to go back there).

The end of the story contains a series of confluent ideas that do not seem forced in any way.  Coincidental, sure, but not by any stretch of the imagination.  And by the end of the story, misdeeds have tried to be righted and feelings have come to the surface.  It’s an emotionally hefty story, beautiful, well written and very satisfying.

The dialogue is right-on, whip-smart and very real.   And the illustrations are simply gorgeous;  Kim has a very simple line, but he conveys so much (even if some of the things (like drooling over the delicious soup) are a wee bit over the top–it brings a lightheartedness to an otherwise heavy story.

My only complaint is the ending.  Well, not not the ending exactly, because it was beautiful and powerful, but that that was the ending.  I wanted more!  Even though this is a short book, I was totally invested in these characters and I want to know what happened after the book cuts to black.

I don’t know if Kim has ever followed these characters anywhere else (I know he has done other stories (like the amazing The Eternal Smile).  I will certainly be tracking down his other book Good as Lily.

And he has an online show called Mythomania that I can’t wait to watch.