I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RAPHAEL SAADIQ-Tiny Desk Concert #28 (September 28, 2009).

I’ve heard the name Raphael Saadiq for years.  I’ve seen his name in print in many places.  And I always assumed he was a word music artist.  I had no idea that he was an R&B artist who was in Tony! Toni! Tone! (a band about which I know nothing except their name).

I’m not a fan of R&B, so I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this Concert very much.  But man, it is a great session.

I have to assume that it’s the acoustic guitars (with the amazing guitar work by Rob Bacon) that rein in some of the trappings of R&B which I tend to dislike.  But I was also really impressed with how great his voice sounded.  Especially knowing that he was in a dance artist (with implied studio trickery), his voice sounds amazing stripped down this way.  He plays three songs, “Love That Girl,” “100 Yard Dash,” “Sure Hope You Mean It” and each one is great.  I love the way he gets the office to sing along on “Sure Hope You mean It” (even though they’re not ready).

I’m tempted to listen to him in another setting to see what he sounds like outside of a Tiny Desk, but I’m afraid to spoil how much I enjoyed him here.

[READ: January 5, 2014] “Deliverance”

I don’t really know much about Lena Dunham. I know she writes Girls, and is the new It-Girl, but I’ve never seen the show and I’ve read very little else about her.  So I didn’t really have any expectations upon reading this.

I learned a bit about her past and her family, but primarily I learned that she and her sister (like so many of us) loved take out food.

She explains that every day around 6 her parents would come home from work–from their studios which were two floors below their place on Broadway.  I have to say that having three apartments/studios whatever in one building must cost a fortune and surely doesn’t really count as going to work, right?

Anyhow, at 6PM her mother would plan to rustle up some food.  They had good food in the house and an Irish nanny who prepared them their earlier meals.  But the girls want take out, like the “thousand layer pancake” at the Malaysian place, and they keep up the tirade.

Their father says that they can’t order out every night–it’s too expensive and too oily.  But the parents’ resistance is low and they cave in most nights.  Dunham says she didn’t want to spend her family’s money, she just loved the comfort, the magic about a meal arriving, “smelling like itself, laid out like a road map to satisfaction.”

Eventually, her mother stars taking cooking lessons with her friend Sarah, a working mom who not only cooks every night, she even jogs in place while she is cooking (no time can go to waste).  Unfortunately, her meals are impractical ones like cheddar biscuits the size of nickels or a vat of caramel.

Then Sarah died suddenly (this is especially odd to read about since the death occurred in June of 2013, a scant few months before this was published).  In August they scattered the ashes in Sarah’s garden. And on that day they have a  meal in memory of her.  Gordon, the chef, claims that he has put her ashes in the paella.  No one is sure if he is telling the truth.

Dunham’s comment about paella is very funny: “a food that wants to be everything and is therefore nothing.”