I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Now for Plan A (2012).

This is the latest Tragically Hip record and it bounces back from the more country feel of We Are the Same and provides eleven solid rocking songs (two of which are actually ballads and not rocking at all but are still good).  “At Transformation” starts with a big bass notes and some feedback, like an alternative indie rocker, but as soon as Gord Downie’s voice comes in it is unmistakably Hip.  This is one of their rockier songs and shows that they are back in fine form.

I recently wrote about “Man Machine” and “Now for Plan A” but I think they both work better in the context of the record.  “Man Machine” contrasts nicely with “At Transformation” and “Plan A” gives the album a chance to relax before the more rocking second half.  “The Lookahead” is the other duet with Sarah Harmer, although I fear she may be a little underutilized here.  It’s a great big chorused song that The Hip do so well.

“We Want To Be It” has a recurring “drip drip” section that I find mesmerizing.  I like the way drip drip turns into click click and then cricket and how it is alternately whispered and screamed.  I’ve never really heard a song where words were used in this way before.

I love the way “About This Map” starts slow but adds a great bridge/chorus that adds a lot of tension.  Take Forever” is a straightforward rocker which along with “The Modern Spirit” and “Streets Ahead” really exemplify the modern sound of the Tragically Hip–simple rockers with big choruses and thoughtful lyrics.  On the other end of the spectrum, “Done and Done” is a simple ballad that works nicely as the song before the closer.  “Goodnight Attawapiskat” (an aboriginal settlement in Northern Ontario) is the kind of amazing minor key, could-be-an epic that Hip fans always love.  It’s scaled down to 4 minutes, but it lets us know that they still have this kind of song in them.

The Hip will never release another record like Fully Completely or Day for Night and while there is something sad about that, it’s nice to see a band evolving and modifying their sound.  This album isn’t going to blow anyone away, but it is a solid collection of great songs.

[READ: May 15, 2013] Player One

I didn’t really understand what a CBC Massey Lecture was.  It was kind of explained, but I was confused how his lecture would have been a full length novel.  And while it is described as a novel in five hours, I doubt his lecture lasted five hours (the story takes place in real time over five hours, but surely no one would have listened to him read for five hours).  Well, thanks to Wikipedia: Each of the book’s five chapters was delivered as a one hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Vancouver on October 12, Regina on October 14, Charlottetown on October 19, Ottawa on October 25 and ending in Toronto on October 29. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One’s Ideas, November 8–12.   Coupland felt that “a narrative seemed like the most efficient and accessible way of putting forth a large number of propositions about life in the year 2010.”

So this turns out to be a story that takes place over five hours, although like many stories with this conceit there are flashbacks (how could there not be).  There are five main characters: Karen, Luke, Rick, Rachel, and Player One.  Although Player One is a confusing character who may or may not really exist.

Karen is a divorced mom and has decided to travel across the country (from Winnipeg to Toronto) to meet a man in an airport bar for a possible fling.  She’s not proud of it but she thinks, why the hell not–she still feels good about herself.  In fact, on the airplane a boy takes some pictures of her with his phone, because she looks pretty hot.  And in the last one she gives him the finger.  (The whole reality of that–that someone may take a picture of you anywhere for any reason is pretty bizarre).  She arrives in the airport bar where she meets Rick, the bartender.

Rick has had a bunch of ups and down in his life (he had a successful landscaping business until someone stole all of his things) and has decided to save up his money (thousands of dollars) to give to Leslie Freemont, a self-help guru.  Rick has more or less made peace with himself and sees this whole guru thing as the next step in his life.  Better yet, Leslie Freemont is coming to his bar tonight to pick up the check and give him some photos.

In the bar are two other individuals.  There’s Luke.  Luke was, until this morning, pastor of a church for many many years.  But something inside him snapped and this morning he withdrew $20,000 from the church’s bank account and fled to Toronto (a randomly picked city).  He’s questioning everything in his life and feeling like a big man with $20,000 cash in his pocket right now.  And he wonders if he can score with that really hot chick on the other side of the bar.  He certainly seems unlikable at the start of the book.

The hot girl is Rachel, who is sitting in the bar’s crappy computer area, doing who knows what.  She is incredibly beautiful–model beautiful–and is drinking only ginger ale.  But something seems off about her.  And when it finally gets to her story we learn that she cannot feel emotion.   She also cannot distinguish faces, has no appreciation for humor (and find it uncomfortable when people laugh) and has had to go to classes to learn to be more like normals.  She raises mice for money and her father things that she is not human.  So she is in this bar to prove him wrong–to gather up the courage to get pregnant to show him that she is a human being.

By the second hour stories are established and people begin pairing up.  Karen’s date has arrived and it is a disaster–he’s a total schmuck.  Rick has given his money to Leslie, who did not stay to hang out–he just grabbed the money and left.  And Luke and Rachel have begun talking to each other (awkwardly).  I found this to be a perfectly good story.  I really enjoyed the scenario and characters.  The arrival of Leslie sets some catalysts in motion.  Luke is disdainful of Leslie (being a  former religious man) and in Karen seems to be getting along with Rick nicely.

Then something shocking happens   Karen and her date met in a “peak oil trading” site and his phone goes off to announce that oil was now up to $250/barrel (in real life it typically hovers around $100).  There was some kind of major crisis and this has set of a huge reaction globally.  Within minutes the price rises to some $500/barrel which causes utter havoc.  Then they hear a giant explosion near the hotel and a chemical gas is floating towards them.  Also, there’s a sniper outside who is simply firing at people (and has killed Karen’s date who fled the hotel).

This scenario is completely unbelievable and yet the way it plans out it seems plausible.  But it is such a strange thing to throw into this story that I found it unsatisfying at first.  Until the story progressed along and I saw that Coupland was using it not only as a catalyst for his story–trapping people in one place–but also as a message about our dependence on oil and our current situation.

By the end of the next hour, the sniper has been corralled–the reason he had a gun had nothing to do with the price of oil, although he says all hell has broken loose out there.  And they’ve had another surprise visitor–someone whom Karen recognizes.  By now the pairings have changed as more and more truths are revealed.

Oh and all this time Player One is giving a kind of overview of the situation–prompting questions for the reader and adding a little more detail than the first person narrative allows.

As the fifth hour comes to an end the future seems fairly certain   Player One assures us about a few things but not everything is happy.  Indeed, the Player One character itself suddenly becomes instantiated with more information.  The ending is a little confusing and unsettling.

The rest of the story was wonderful.  It was fast paced and encompassed many of Coupland’s themes: time, technology, religion, an afterlife, and storytelling   Really his novels don’t alter that much from book to book, he just finds new ways to get his message across.  And this was a particularly compelling one.