I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BEIRUT-Tiny Desk Concert #159 (September 21, 2011).

I don’t know a lot about Beirut.  NPR seems to like them and all I know about them comes from the shows NPR streamed.  This Tiny Desk concert is only 12 minutes long and the band doesn’t chat very much.  But they play three songs: “East Harlem,” “Santa Fe,” and “Serbian Cocek.”  This last song was meant as kind of a goof, a treat for the people who showed up (Beirut had just come back from Bonnaroo and were exhausted), but they allowed NPR to include it in the stream, which is a fun treat.

Beirut play a kind of jaunty horn-fueled eastern European-flavored music.  “Serbian Cocek” has a very tradition feel–an instrumental fueled by trumpets that’s very hard not to dance to.  They are certainly not to everyone’s cup of tea, but if you like some Europe in your rock, they are worth checking out.  Even if in this set they aren’t hitting the highest notes that they might otherwise hit.

[READ: December 1, 2012] “Literally”

This story runs a gamut of ideas in a very short span–death, race, marriage, public transportation, soft serve ice cream and the misuse of the word literally.

And perhaps there is too much crammed in here.  It’s not that the story suffers but by the time you get to the end of the story, the title seems irrelevant.   It refers to paragraph five in which Richard “liked to make his son smile by using his favorite word incorrectly.”  And then it’s not used again (unless you want  to argue that the end is somehow a literal moment, but I really don’t).

The story switches back and forth between Richard’s daughter Suzanne who works at the Dairy Queen and Richard’s son Danny, a smart alec kid who engages in the time honored tradition of mocking his sister (although she is completely oblivious to his taunts).  The story is also about Bonita, Richard’s housekeeper.

Every since his wife died (recently, in a car crash), Richard has become painfully aware of how much his wife did–even simple acts like communicating with Bonita.  Richard knows very little Spanish, while his wife was fluent.  His wife also helped out with Bonita’s son Isaac, who is “nervioso.”  So Bonita brings Isaac over most days.  Indeed, because of the districting, Richard and his wife agreed that Isaac and Bonita could claim that they lived with them, so Isaac could go to the better school.  Danny and Isaac get along very well, and often get absorbed in a game called “town” (which helps Isaac to relax).

As the story opens, Suzanne is in a tizzy because she’s not ready for school–Bonita arrives just in time to settle things down.  Isaac is not feel well, so the boys play hooky in the morning (intending to go to school in the afternoon for the class pizza party).

When Richard arrives at work, he gets a call from Bonita saying that the boys have “gone out.”  Bonita’s command of English is as good as Richard’s command of Spanish, so they don’t really get anywhere.  They panic, not knowing where the boys could have gone.  Until they piece together that they probably went back to Isaac’s house to get a toy for their game.  It’s across town by bus, a crazy proposition for these two soon to be middle-schoolers, but they are determined (and I feel perhaps a touch autistic?).

When they finally arrive at Bonita’s place, the story takes yet another turn.  Richard speaks to the handyman to find out which is their apartment.  It turns out that the handyman is actually Bonita’s estranged husband–who scares the hell out of Isaac and has a restraining order against him.  He is not welcome (except the few times when Bonita wants him, according to Richard’s ex-wife).  There’s a lengthy sequence at Bonita’s as they try to settle everything down

When they get back to the house, Suzanne is there frantically searching for her phone.  When Richard tells her to relax, she explains that it has voice messages from her mom.  Which can’t be replaced.  This causes Richard to flash back to a scene from Annie Hall with Christopher Walken:

Not literally, but that’s what I thought of immediately.

I really rather enjoyed this story.  I even went to the New Yorker site to see if it was part of a lager story (aren’t you proud of me Karen?).  But indeed this isn’t.  I’m just surprised that there seems to be so many giant ellipses in this story.  I didn’t mind so much while I was reading it, but it seems very odd when trying to recap it.