I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SUPER XX MAN-Tiny Desk Concert #12 (January 27, 2009, recorded Oct. 22, 2008).

I included the recording date because this is the first one that actually mentions the recording date.  I had always known that the shows were recorded before they were posted, but i had no idea they were so far apart.

Super XX Man is another “band” that I only know about because of NPR.  Scott Garred is Super XX Man (pronounced Super Double X Man), and he has recorded most of his albums at home.  Interestingly, he is also a music therapist in the maximum-security wing of the Oregon State Hospital—the location where they filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  His job is helping psychiatric patients cope with drug addiction, severe mental illness and other assorted disorders.

I’m not sure exactly what his recorded output is like (he has been recording for 15 years and had recently recorded with a band for Volume XII: There’ll Be Diamonds), but this solo venture is just him with a guitar.  He has a very nice voice and his melodies are simple and catchy.

“There’ll Be Diamonds” is a very nice catchy song—very positive.  The second song, “Big Balloon,” is for the newly admitted patients at the hospital.  It is a very tender look at people who are dealing with something quite traumatic.

“Collecting Rocks” comes from Volume VI, and is based on a story his grandfather told him a while ago.  It’s an incredibly sweet song about two people in love.  But it’s also fun how he gets the room to sing along at the end.  I imagine that NPR employees are more docile than his usual audience.

[READ: January 5, 2014] The True Meaning of Smekday

I have known Adam Rex first as an illustrator.  Then I knew him as a children’s picture book author.  And now, the other day, I saw that he also wrote larger children’s books.  In the library I saw Unlucky Charms. I was going to grab it but then I saw that he was “the author of” other books.  So, being the kind of person I am, I decided to read his first novel first, which was this one.

This novel combines art (photographs—which are drawn by Rex), comics (as drawn by an alien) and a school story written for a time capsule (as such, the font is in a weird sans-serif that I found bothersome to read (man I am really getting old)).

Anyhow, I thought this book was very very funny on so many level.  There were pop culture jokes, there was great dialogue and there were fun internal jokes.  There were some sophisticated jokes and some really juvenile jokes.  And they all combined to make for a very good read.

The only problem with the book was that it was so damned long.  No one needs to write a 422 page book about an alien invasion.  The story could easily have lost 100 pages and not been harmed at all.  And I say that because I loved the beginning and I devoured the end, but I felt rather adrift in the middle.

Okay our main character is 11-year-old Gratuity Tucci (the joke about her name I too good to spoil).  A few days before Christmas (and there is a little spoiler in here about Santa, which is why I didn’t want my 8-year-old to read it—well, plus then I decided it was overall just too mature for him, so I’d say Middle School Age for this one).  Where was I?  Oh yes, a Few days before Christmas (hilariously it is set in 2013), Gratuity’s mother is taken by aliens.

Shortly after that, the aliens land on earth.  They are the Boov and their leader is Smek.  He claims the Earth as his own and rechristens it Smekland.  And the day of the landing is, naturally, Smekday.  As part of the Boovian takeover, every human is told to get in their transporter and get sent to Florida.

But Gratuity isn’t going out like that, so she takes her mom’s car and starts driving.  She had been practicing driving (with cans tied to her shoes) for a while, so this is no big deal.  And after a few (um, minor) accidents (which no one cared about since they had all left), she is on the road.  Until she sees that the Boov have put a giant hole in the turnpike.

Gratuity stops at a convenience store to get herself some food. Most everything has been looted by this point, but she is able to get some weird things for herself and some canned cat food for her cat, named Pig.  (The biggest real problem I had with the book is that Pig is alternately called him and her throughout, so I never knew if Pig was a boy or a girl.  Editors, I hope you fixed that in future editions).

Anyhow, while in the store, she encounters a Boov.  And that Boov seems kind of timid.

Gratuity is able to capture the Boov who reveals that he is in trouble.  He has done something quite bad and the rest of the Boov are after him.  He reveals also that the Earth name he has chosen is J.Lo (ha!—not as hilarious perhaps as in 2007, but still funny).  Turns out Pig really likes J.Lo too, indeed all cats like the Boov quite a lot (they smell a bit like fish).  So Pig is snuggling with J.Lo.  And so, after he performs a few modifications to her car, including a  big sign that says Slushalicious and the ability to float, they set off for Florida.

I mentioned that this was an essay.  And indeed it is.  Gratuity is submitting her essay on the True Meaning of Smekday for her class.  (Incidentally I just got the joke of what her school is named, nice).  The winning essay will be put into a time capsule so that people in 100 years will know what it was like to have been around when Smekday first came about.  Her first essay is met with mixed results, as she doesn’t really talk about the “meaning” of Smekday, exactly (she was given a C+).  So, she decided to submit a follow up.  [The first essay is a bout 30 pages, the second is about 100, the third is the rest of the book).

One of the consistently funny jokes in the book is that in Florida they are heading to Happy Mouse Kingdom.  And it explains how Happy Mouse Kingdom always looks so perfectly clean (I did always wonder).  I don’t know if Rex couldn’t use Disney names or if he just thought it would be a lot funnier to do parodies of Disney names instead, and they are very funny indeed.

So when Gratuity and J.Lo make it to Happy Mouse Kingdom, they see spray painted signs from a group called BOOB (there are two separate groups named BOOB) telling them to meet under the Castle.  When she gets there (hiding from J.Lo. as she’s still not entirely trusting of him yet), she meets BOOB.  BOOB turns out to be a bunch of boys (who thought the acronym would be funny) hiding out as a protest against the Boov.  They don’t actually do anything, but they figure hiding out is still a protest.

It is while they are there that Gratuity learns that all of the Boov have forced the humans to move to Arizona, instead (they like oranges).  And so off they head for Arizona (I feel like a lot of what I just skipped could have been cut).

On their way west (a long drive that maybe could have been trimmed, too), they discover some interesting things and then stop in Roswell, New Mexico.  The entire Roswell sequence is hilarious (turns out both the government and the UFOlogists were telling the truth).  Of course the UFOlogists are thrilled to finally have aliens to talk to—except that the aliens were supposed to be NICE!

While in Roswell, we learn just what J.Lo did to be in so much trouble.  It has something to do with a giant purple ball hovering over the earth.  That is the ship of the Gorg, a really nasty race of aliens who have come to take over what the Boov have only recently taken over. The Gorg have taken the Boov’s technology and made it even more impressive.  And they mean serious business.  Even the Boov can’t fight them.

Gratuity and J.Lo hightail it out of Roswell just before it is blown up by the Gorg—the Gorg lost something and don’t want anyone else to find it (although we know who did).  And they can only hope that all of their new friends survived the blast.

The two of them (and Pig) make it to Arizona, where a whole new society has started up (there’s even maps).  And despite the possibility of joining together against the Boov, people have still segregated themselves into clusters. And each cluster has a leader.  The most charismatic of whom has decided to negotiate with the Gorg.  Which Gratuity knows can only lead to trouble.

So at this point there are a few threads left open for you to discover—will she find her mom, is her mom even alive, what will happen to J.Lo if the Boov find him, what will happen to J.Lo if the Boov are wiped out, who will Pig stay with, and just why do the Gorg hate cats so much (we didn’t talk about that but it’s a valid question).

So as I said I loved the ending of the book—I flew through the last fifty or so pages.  And while I felt some parts dragged, it was worth it. According to Wikipeda they are planning to make this in to a film, which I think would be excellent.  Although I am already bummed to see that they have changed the name from the intriguing Happy Smekday!  to the dull and useless Home.  C’mon Hollywood.