I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: HORSE FEATHERS-Tiny Desk Concert #14 (May 8, 2009).

I’d never heard of Horse Feathers before this Tiny Desk Concert.  Justin Ringle is the lead singer and guitarist of the band (which in this incarnation includes a violin and cello).  Ringle’s voice is soft and kind of high-pitched.  They seem very well suited to the Tiny Desk, (and are in stark contrast to Tom Jones!).

They play three songs, “Working Poor,” and “Curs in the Weeds” are beautiful with the wonderful strings accenting his voice and guitar.

In their interview they talk a little about their instruments (all of which are very old!).  Indeed the guitar is old, but the violin (one of only 4 made) is even older and the cello is nearly 100 years old.  Very impressive.

For the final song, “Heathen’s Kiss, ” the violinist busts out singing saw.  It’s awesome.

I really enjoyed this simple and beautiful set.

[READ: January 7, 2014] “Caught Napping”

This New Yorker has several small essays about work.  They are primarily from people who I wasn’t familiar with–only Amy Poehler saved the five from being unread.  When after reading all of them I enjoyed them enough to include them all here.

The pieces are labelled under “Work for Hire” and each talks about a humiliating job.

Nicole Holofcenter is a filmmaker.  She has directed a number of films that I have liked (including Walking and Talking) and most recently James Gandolfini’s last movie (which I haven’t seen), Enough Said.

In this essay she talks about a job working for “Mr. Stone” (which I’m not sure if we’re supposed to assume is Oliver Stone or not).  At any rate the job paid a fortune at the time ($500/wk) and all she had to do was answer the phone.

The job was for Columbia Pictures which see assumed would get her foot in the door with other movie people.  And given the amount of downtime should have, she assumed she could get a lot of writing done.

She didn’t.  And then she grew to resent her boring job.  [I have to say if you get paid to do basically nothing then you should maximize your time and do what you want to with that time.  If I had a job that paid me to do nothing, my blog posts would be longer and I might actually get around to writing a short story or two.

Nicole’s downfall came when she discovered Mr Stone’s couch.  Stone never came into the office, so she just started napping on the big comfy couch.  Until he came in one day.

Apparently getting fired from Columbia Pictures didn’t ruin her future a filmmaker.