I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JULIE DOIRON-Tiny Desk Concert #20 (July 6, 2009).

I don’t know Julie Doiron exactly–her name sounds familiar, and I know the band Eric’s Trip (she was the bassist), but I don’t really recognize her.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed her Tiny Desk Concert.  Unlike most of the musicians, she busts out an electric guitar, and although it’s quiet, there’s some good buzzy distortion on it, especially in the first song “Heavy Snow.”  And it sounds good with her voice, which is powerful, even if she does seem nervous.

On “Ce Charmant Coeur” she sings in French and then messes up when she admits she’s thinking of other things and is distracted by the intimacy of the setting.  Bob and company calm her by saying that she is sweating less than Tom Jones did (and there’s very funny joke about her breasts popping out (they don’t)).

She plays “Tailor.” It seems like she tried earlier and stopped half way through and is now trying again (the Concert itself starts midway through, so I assume that’s what was cut off).  It’s a pretty, mellow song (very different sounding from “Heavy Snow”).

For the last song she plays “Consolation Prize” which she says is unlike any she’d written before.  There’s a chaotic section in the middle which they agree we can just imagine because shes not going to play it in this setting.  The blurb with the show says that she normally rocks out pretty hard–something that I’d like to see.

In looking up Doiron’s past she was on Kill Rock Stars and Sub Pop, so I must have seen her name a lot back in the day.  I now see she has recorded with all kinds of bands that I like, and I’m curious to hear her more rocking edge (especially since she is so polite and sweet and nervous here).

Check it out here.

[READ: January 11, 2014] Hey Nostradamus!

After finishing the exciting All Families are Psychotic I moved on to his novel with my least favorite title and with a horrendous cover.  You’d think that I would remember these books but I had no memory of this one either, and I’m fairly certain I read it within the last ten years.

Coupland must have been in a very dark place with this book as well.

There are four sections, each from a different person’s point of view.  This technique of having a person tell his or her story is something Coupland does very well in all of his works–he loves to tell stories about telling stories.

But the darkness about the book is that it is set in a school just as three student gunman come in and shoot up the cafeteria, killing dozens of students, including the first narrator, Cheryl.  This was written with the Columbine shootings in mind, although it has nothing specifically to do with Columbine.

In Part 1, Cheryl has already been killed as she is relating this story to us.  She tells us about herself and her decision to join Youth Alive! a religious group in school.  She and her friends in the group are very moral and are quite clique-y (and they are not widely liked).

The latest thing in Cheryl’s life which has her preoccupied and which has her Youth Alive! group very upset is that she has been spending a lot of unchaperoned time with Jason.  Everyone knew they were dating, but it seems to have gone further now.  And Cheryl explains to us (but not them) that she and Jason have started having sex.  But not until after they rushed off to Vegas and were quickie-married (which no one knows, not even their parents).

And on the day that the massacre happened, she had just learned that she was pregnant.

In Section 2 Jason tells his version of things.  But whereas Cheryl’s is set in 1988, Jason’s is set in 1999.  He talks about Youth Alive! and about his and Cheryl’s decision to go to Vegas to get married.  And of course, he talks about the massacre and his role in stopping it.  And the fact that he was initially assumed to have been a ringleader—something which many people never forgot even though he was completely cleared.

But mostly he talks about what his life has been like for the past ten years—lonely.  It is especially lonely because his father, Reg, an insanely religious man, seemed to think in his heart that Jason was guilty.  Not of the massacre, but of just about everything else.

Reg was an extremely devout person, and he found fault in everything everyone did—this was an extension of his own father.  Jason’s older brother Kent followed in Reg’s footsteps, being very pious and leading Youth Alive! and generally setting a very good example.  So even though Jason followed as well, he was never deemed good enough.  When Jason came home the day of the massacre and the police explained that he was a hero because he threw a rock at one of the gunmen and killed him, Reg looked at him and called him a murderer.  That’s when Jason’s mom, who had been putting up with crap like this for too long, hit Reg in the kneecap, sent him to the hospital, and divorced him.

Jason’s life has been quite lonely since then.  He keeps to himself, works at a job where friendships don’t really form and walks his dog.

Jason’s letter is written to his nephews, the part of his family whom he really loves.  It has been hard for them because Kent was killed in a car accident before they were born, so they have no real father.  Indeed, the saga of Kent’s death and the nephew’s birth is a surprise and a very enjoyable if familiar saga.  And it adds a whole level of depth to Jason that he tries to hide.

Part 3 is written in 2002 and is by Heather.  Heather is the woman who met Jason in a Toys R Us.  They immediately hit it off (and I love how).  Their relationship is one of communication through personal, fictional characters—a fun and joy-filled relationship.  Until he goes missing.  He left a note of the “just going out to get smokes” variety and then never returned.  And so Heather has been spending all of the time (months now) trying to figure out what the hell has happened.  Then she gets a call out of the blue from a woman who claims to be a psychic.  She says she received a message.  It was one of the catchphrases that Heather and Jason’s characters would say.  And she says that Heather’s phone number came with the message.  Heather is beside herself.

And she is quickly reeled into the story that this psychic is telling her—periodic updates and messages that only she and Jason could possibly know.  And the psychic isn’t asking for anything in return. At first.  Then she starts asking for small things and then bigger things and Heather knows that she is being extorted but she needs these connections.  Where are they coming from?

Interestingly, Heather has also recently befriended Jason’s, father, Reg.  Despite everything that Jason has told her about him, she likes Reg.  And when Jason disappeared, Reg mellowed and found comfort with Heather.  And they have interesting discussions about religion and his current life.

Which leads to Part 4.  It is the shortest part and is set in 2003 and is written by Reg.  He explains his own history and his own parents and how he never meant to be the kind of father that he turned out to be.  But he also explains why he is writing this and that despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes that Jason is still out there and he knows he can find him.

What is strange about the end of the book is that you are left wondering about Jason’s disappearance.  If he was taken, it seems so random. If he left, why would he leave a relationship as good as he had with Heather—they seemed so happy.  If he killed himself, he still had the nephews to live for, and he never really seemed depressed.  So what gives, Jason?

It’s quite a dark story with not a lot of redemption, but it is a well drawn portrait of people grieving.