I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE BLOW-“Parentheses” (2006).

I learned about The Blow from NPR Music.  The lads played a new song by them, but this song, which is also available on NPR, is from 2006.  I don’t know anything else about The Blow.  But I do know that “Parentheses” is a delightful little pop confection (with enough elements of weirdness that explain why it was never a hit).

“Parentheses” immediately sounds like something I’ve heard before.  That chorus is just so perfect—“when you’re holding me, we make a pair of parentheses” that I can’t believe no one has thought of it before.  Of course, the bit in the verses about the deli aisle is certainly unexpected.

I normally don’t like the bap bap // bap drum beat, but it’s perfect here.  The stripped down nature of the music (simple chords on a few different keyboard sounds) accompanies this perfectly.  It’s sung with Khaela Maricich’s sweet and almost fragile (but not) voice.

It is so catchy I have now listened to it three times in a row.  And that little guitar tail at the end is very inviting as well.  I can’t believe this song wasn’t huge.

[READ: September 26, 2013] Desolate Heaven

I read this play because of my friend Ailish—I’ve never seen anyone with a name almost like hers—Ailís—before.  And, given the Irish name it is no surprise that the story is set in Ireland.  But rather than Dublin, it is set on a desolate beach.  We see two young girls: Orlaith (13) and Sive (12) messing about.  They are acting like adults—complaining about the beach and “the kids” and how everything is awful.  Despite some tensions, the girls bond over their difficult lives.  Each lives with a single parent and in each case, the parent is an invalid.  Each girl has to do everything for her parent in addition to going to school.  And in the next few scenes we see just how desperate their situations are: Sive’s mother has broken her pelvis (and has been unable to move for two years) and Orlaith’s father didn’t get up at all today because he didn’t feel he was able to.

In the next scene, we see the girls acting out a plan—to meet at the beach with as much money as they can grab.  And just like that, they are off on a road trip.

They have enough food to start and they are able to find places to sleep.  A few days into their journey, they meet Freda, a farmer.  She invites them in and tells them a story.  The story is about a girl who meets a prince and is to be married to him as long as she can spin thread for the Queen.  On that first night a fairy comes by and offers to do all the work for her if she can come to the wedding.  The girl agrees immediately.

Freda gives them a lovely meal and in the morning the girls set out again.  We see them on the road hitchhiking.  Orlaith is the braver of the two, standing up for herself and Sive while Sive definitely feels nervous and is worried about her mom.  They are soon picked up by Laoise (pronounced Lee-sha), Laoise the Lorry Driver.  Laoise gives them some snacks and drives them along the road.  She continues the story about the fairy and the princess.  In this second installation, another fairy comes and offers to do the work if she can go to the wedding.  The princess happily agrees.  Laoise proves to be a big help to them, giving them some money and encouragement.  She makes Sive feel better about the fate of women (she didn’t know women could drive lorries) and says that Orlaith reminds her of herself.

We next see the girls on the steps of a church begging for money.   Bridie stops and talks to them. She invites them back to her place.  First she shows them her butcher shop and her stores and stores of corned beef.  Then she brings them home and feeds them.  Bridie finishes the fairy tale which makes Sive very happy because of the nice ending, although Orlaith is skeptical of the whole story.  Bridie also knows about them (she heard about them on the radio), although she says she won’t tell on them.  And indeed, she offers them her country cottage to crash in for a time.

And here we learn just how insecure the two girls really are (they’re barely teenagers for crying out loud).  We learn the kinds of things that Oralith has done with the boys in her neighborhood (earlier we heard Sive’s mother say that no men were any good).  And we learn that Orlaith’s plans are all about security and safety with a woman—since she hasn’t had one in her life for as long as she could remember,

The story is obviously very sad both in their histories and in their present (it is called Desolate Heaven after all).  But it was also very interesting and I’ll bet that this play would not leave a dry eye in the house.

For ease of searching I include: Ailiis Ni Riain