I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: WILD FLAG at SXSW (Mellow Jonny’s Bike Shop), March 15, 2011 (2011).

This is the second set from SXSW that NPR has offered for our enjoyment.  This show is similar to the other SXSW set that NPR has on video.

They play “Something Came Over Me” instead of “Arabesque” but otherwise the setlist is the same.  The band sounds energetic and like they’re having a lot of fun.  There’s an occasional screw up of a line and some of their harmonies sound a little off, but otherwise they sound great.

And they are playing in a bike shop (really).  Carrie says that they are going to buy one of the $3,000 bikes.  I wonder how bummed the owners are that she can’t possibly be serious.  It sounds very good despite it’s being in a bike shop–unless this is sound board magic.

At the end of the set she says they are playing 6 more shows at SXSW, so that explains the two different recordings from SXSW.  You can hear this none here.

[READ: November 15, 2012] “Worried Sisters”

This is a very simple story, one which I found to be very enjoyable.  I like that it is written in second person plural (“Our sister has always caused us grief”).  And I like that there is significant progression in the life of the sister through the very short story (about a page and a half).

In her early childhood, their sister put everything in her mouth (twice ending in the emergency room).  When she became a teen, she ate too much and then too little and dyed her hair until it fell out and generally doubted how pretty she was.  And, of course she wanted to be an artist.

But when anyone in the family said she wanted to be an artist, she was offended because she was an artist. All through this time she lashed out at anyone and everything who she felt disagreed with her.  Especially when the family disliked the artists that she dated–who she agreed were narcissistic–but of whom she couldn’t get enough.

But she promised that when she turned forty she would give up on art. And she did.  She settled down, got a real job and a normal boyfriend.  And the family loved him.  But after they had been together for a while, she couldn’t handle his mannerisms and broke up with him.

And that’s when she finally decided to go n medication.  The end of the story has the narrator(s) wondering if the medicine is a “real” solution.  Are the decisions that she makes now “real” since the medicine is what is making her seem normal?

In addition to being an interesting story, it’s a story that makes you think.  Not bad for less than two pages.