I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Tiny Desk Concert #206 (April 5, 2012).

Kathleen Edwards has a great voice and she writes great songs.  There’s not much more to this set than her singing four fantastic songs in the Tiny Desk setting.  Although her songs have full band arrangements on records, they do not sound out of place in this smaller, acoustic environment.

As she introduces the final song of the set “Change the Sheets” she says it’s the first time they’ve played it acoustically.  You’d ever know.  It sounds great.

There’s not a lot more to say about this Tiny Desk set–it highlights a great songwriter with a great voice.

[READ: October 15, 2012] “The Third Born”

I had a wee bit of trouble following this story, although I admit I didn’t give it my undivided attention at first.

If this isn’t an excerpt, then it’s a fairly disconnected story with large gaps–it reads like a few distinct scenes that happen so far apart as to be almost disconnected.  (I re-read it to make sure).

The story begins with a boy in a village in India.  He is sick and his mother knows how to help him with this not uncommon rural disease.  He watches the village as he lays there, more or less immobile–how the women seem to do a lot of work, although his mother doesn’t work outside the house.  Eventually his father returns from the city where he is a successful cook.  The boy’s mother asks if the whole family can move to the city.  He balks at the idea–he spends several month sat a time in the city where he makes good money, although he claims it is not enough for a family to live on in the city.

But he eventually caves and the next scene shows the family moving from dirt roads to paved roads and four-story buildings.

Then the boy is in school.  He proves to be smart enough to know when the teacher is wrong (well, actually the teacher mis-reads the book, so it is obvious that he is wrong), but the teacher, an underpaid civil servant who had to bribe his way into the job doesn’t allow himself to be talked to by this boy, and punishment ensues.

The story allows us to learn a bit about the city and the roles people play.  As the third born, the protagonist is able to go to school, while the first-born brother must work and the second born sister is betrothed.  He is the only lucky one in school.

There’s not much more plot to it.  It’s an interesting look into the lives of this family, although I don’t know that it’ a very good short story.