I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: OKKERVIL RIVER-“All You Little Suckers” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

 This is another cover of an East River Pipe song.  (I get the feeling that Merge has signed maybe six bands in total).  I didn’t mind this cover so much when I listened to it the first few times—it’s weirdly high-pitched towards the end and kind of melodramatic all through, but I didn’t find it awful.

But once I heard the original, I decided that I didn’t like the cover much.  The original is simple and understated, highlighting the melody.  Plus it’s nearly half as long as the cover.  Why the cover is as ponderous as it is, I don’t know.  Score one for the original.

[READ: April 29, 2012] “My Mother, Myself”

Another article from The New York Times and another article that changes what we think of Rivka Galchen.  In this one, we meet Rivka’s mother, the driving force behind her life choices.  In other words, she insisted that Rivka would keep being a doctor.

As we know from other articles, Rivka no longer wanted to be a doctor (again, I still haven’t read if she finished school or not).  And she was hoping to use the experiment that comprises this article as a test.  She would be going to Guatemala for three weeks of immersion learning of Spanish.  She would also be participating in a trial study for a vaccine for traveler’s diarrhea (for the cost of room and board and study).

Rivka had wanted to take a year long break from medical school and go to Peru to work for a nonprofit.  This Guatemala excursion seemed like a good way to test the waters and prove to her mother than a Central American country was a good place or her to spend that year.

She sets herself up nicely in Guatemala.  And then her mother comes to visit, to see just what she is getting up to.  Rivka initially tries to hide all the faults with where she is staying (Guatemala in 2000 was not the nicest place to be).  They eat gringo food and debate how significant it is that there are armed guards everywhere.

On the next to last day, they go for a hike.  They are encouraged to bring a policeman with them.  When it turns out that that was pretty good advice, Rivka’s mother has an unexpected reaction to the incident—one that really surprised me.

This was a fun, short essay and it was very well written—the surprise at the end was great.