I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: POND-“Giant Tortoise” (2013).

When I first listened to this song I wasn’t all that excited by it.  In part I’ll admit it’s because I was listening with only one earbud (a work hazard).  When I was finally able to listen with both earbuds, the song grew exponentially, turning it from a kind of mundane classic rocker into a trippy psychedelic classic rocker.

There’s not much strikingly original about this song–the sound is totally retro, the riffs are pretty simple, even the recording technique is nothing all that exciting.  And yet when you put it all together in this big soundscape, the song is much more than the sum of its parts.

The guitars are big and expansive like their native Australia, the vocals are soft and processed, and the ending instrumental section is very trippy.  Oh, and three of the members of Pond are also in Tame Impala.  Not a bad side project at all.

[READ: July 15, 2013] “When We Went Against the Universe”

In this story, two girls play a game in which they ask the universe questions and do whatever the universe dictates.  The game, which they call Fate Papers, is very simple.  They take two scraps of paper and write Yes on one and No on the other.  One of the girls holds out her hands and lets the scraps drop.  Whichever lands first is what they do.  And they never go against the universe.

The girls live in Mississauga (which they call Misery Saga) and they have done everything that young teens can do that summer–they’ve eaten all the snacks, hung out at all the places, even talked about everything they could ever want to talk about.

The girls go to McDonald’s and get McFlurrys.  When they are about to leave, Mel, the more daring of the two, says that the three businessmen sitting at the other table were checking her out.  She says she has been emanating sex all day and these men responded.  And so Mel proposes that they should offer to suck off the men for money–at least $50 each.  The narrator goes along assuming that nothing will come of it.  But Mel is serious.  She imagines just how much they could get from each of them (even more because they are virgins).  And she drags the narrator to the bathroom so they can make sure they look good and to see if they guys checked them out as they walked past.

When the narrator realizes that Mel is serious, she says it’s time to do Fate Papers.  The papers say Yes.

Before the story ends, there is a tiny section that flashes forward to what the girls are like as adults.  Sadly, the results are rather unsavory, although apparently more for Mel than the narrator.

I loved the narrator in the story.  She is a simple, smart, bored teenager.  She is slightly repressed (compared to Mel) because she doesn’t like the word “horny” and has just started feeling comfortable saying “tits”).  But she is honest and nervous and wanting to go along without pushing things too far.  It was a good picture of suburban life in a place where there is nothing to do, especially if you don’t have a lot of money.