I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MATES OF STATE-Tiny Desk Concert #163 (October 5, 2011).

Mates of State is another band that I only know of because of NPR.  I hadn’t heard them at all before this set (and another concert that they recorded for download).  I like them, although they haven’t totally blown me away.

Mates of State make delightful music.  I don’t know if there’s a better word for it–it’s poppy and upbeat without being cloying or treacly and it seems so happy.   The founders of Mates of State are a husband and wife.  They sing quite loudly and often in a high register.  Indeed, the write-up that accompanied this show says that the band is quite scaled back–that they are usually much bigger and louder and that they had a hard time in this small setting.

But it’s a very good set and a nice sample of the kind of music they play.   The set features keyboards, acoustic guitar and a trumpet.  They play two songs from their album Mountaintops, “Sway” and “Desire.”  They also play “My Only Offer” from Re-Arrange Us, their previous record.  Mates of State have released a bunch of stuff on Barsuk records, a wonderful indie label, so they get respect from me.

I was also amused when Kori Gardner commented that this was “the earliest concert they’ve ever done.”

[READ: November 3, 2012] Stealth the Ghost Panther

The final book of this arc has just come out and Clark was very excited to read it.  I’m torn about what to do if Scholastic releases the next story arc.  The books seem to come out every six months, but I don’t think I want to wait six months to read book 26 after reading book 25.  But then do I want to wait three years to read the next arc all at once?  No I do not.  Not since Clark will be ten!  I hope Scholastic picks up the pace here.

Anyhow, this six book arc ended with Stealth the Ghost Panther (the most fearsome beast yet!).  [The one thing I dislike about the series is that every next beast is “more fearsome” than the last, which somehow undermines the fearsomeness of the previous beasts, no?  Honestly, how could that be quantitatively true.  Having said that, this one is pretty scary.  The panther is scary, but worse, if it simply scratches you it turns you evil.

So Tom and Elenna go to a village where they once helped the citizens.  The citizens are happy to see them, but they are acting a little strange.  They offer Tom and Elenna food but then lock them in the storeroom and chase off Storm and Silver.  And so it goes with the book–fear that trusted people may have been scratched by the panther.  Indeed, when Tom and Elenna finally return home, they are under suspicion as well!

This story completes the arc in which Tom loses a power for every beast that he defeats, but at the end we see that the magical armor has been returned to the King’s storage.  But of course, Tom cannot rest for the next series proves to feature the most fearsome beasts yet.

And actually, the next series is called The Shade of Death, so maybe it will be more intense than the others.

I didn’t love this series when we first started it, but the complexities have grown as the series has progressed and I find that I’m enjoying more and more.  I also enjoyed that I could read this book in two nights at bedtime–some of the books we’ve been reading lately have been a bit longer, so this was a nice quick treat.