I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: STARS-Heart (2003).

I found out about Stars with their second album but I like their debut quite a lot too.  There’s a few songs that i don’t love, but overall the album is really solid.

The opening synths belie the beautiful guitar (and nice bass work) of “What the Snowman Learned About Love.”  Singer Torq’s voice is low and muted while other singer Amy Milan has gorgeous  harmony vocals.  “Elevator Love Later” features’ Milan on lead (for some verses)–the album really comes to life with this song.  It’s got a great chorus and a cool bass line that elevates the song above typical pop fare.

“Heart” has a melancholy piano riff (something Stars excel at) and some wonderfully poignant lyrics: “Sometimes the TV is like a lover, singing softly as you fall asleep.”  And yet it, once again, has a really catchy chorus (with lots of “All rights”).  “Woods” is mildly orchestral and has a plaintive vocal line and a sampled spoken word section (which I can’t identify).

“Death to Death” is one of my favorite Stars songs.  A slinky discoey song with Torq’s cool verses and Milan’s sultry “I am destroyer I am lover” chorus.  I love the sound of the next song (synthy flutes and the very clear guitar) that play throughout “The Vanishing” even though I don’t love the song.

“Romantic Comedy” surprises with its baritone guitar sound (instead of the sprightly synths), but the chorus is once again super catchy.  There’s some great lyrics in this song as well: “You’re not bad, but you were just badly raised,” and the chorus “don’t walk away then turn and say I love you anyway.”  “Time Can Never Kill the True Heart” is a beautiful song with a lovely sentiment.  “Look Up” is a pretty Amy Milan sung song.  I love the way the chorus’ words don’t pause for breath even though the song itself is not very fast.  “Life Effect” is pretty song sung by Torq (I really like when the guitars come to the fore even though I think of Stars primarily as a synth band).

“Don’t Be Afraid to Sing” is the final song on the album,.  It’s a simple ballad, and once again the bass line is great–nothing fancy but it’s a great melody behind the guitars and vocals.  It’s got a great ending of an album sentiment: “We all come to an end / And we all end together.”

There’s a “bonus” track on my version of the album (cleverly hidden about 20 seconds after the previous song).  It has a with a great hidden bonus track title–“The Comeback.”  It actually sounds perfect with the album–an instance where a bonus doesn’t really feel tacked on.  It’s a nice addition if you can’t get enough of the band.

Incidentally, the American version has the reddish cover above, while the original cover is this black and white one down here.

[READ: November 17, 2014] Silk

I enjoyed Mr Gwyn so much that I wanted to read more by Baricco.  And when I saw that many of his books are so short, it  was easy to grab them and devour them.

I didn’t know anything about Silk–somehow I missed it when it came out.  It was even made into a movie, so it must have been a big important book (and it was a huge best seller).  So imagine my surprise to see that the book is 91 pages and that each chapter is basically one page (sometimes half a page).   And Baricco creates this beautiful, taut story that is really compelling, in what is really only about 70 pages of text.

I’ve admired Baricco’s ability to write gorgeous novellas, and this must be where it all started (his earlier books are somewhat longer than this).  The fact that none of his stories are about similar things is also pretty amazing.

This story is about a Frenchman who makes his fortune buying silkworm eggs and the lengths and distances he is willing to travel for them.  But it is also about something much more poignant.

The story is indeed told in almost poem size chunks.  Each chapter conveys a thought or a moment.  And as the story begins it seems like a simple tale of a merchant providing for his wife, Helene.  It is 1861, and for the last eight years, Herve Joncour has been traveling once a year to distant lands to get silkworm eggs.  He then brings them back to the factories in town where they produce beautiful silk.  But in this year the silkworm epidemic was destroying the European eggs, which meant traveling further abroad.

There is some background explanation of how the silk mills were built.  Twenty years earlier, Baldabiou walked into the mayor’s office with a silk scarf and asked him what he thought of it.  The mayor thought nothing of it.  Baldabiou scoffed at him and then built a mill by the river.  Within seven months he had a ton of money which he waved in front of the mayor.

He hired Joncour a few years after that.  He told Joncour where to go for the silk and Joncour did unquestioningly.  And he made them both very rich.

By the 8th chapter, we see them preparing to deal with the silkworm epidemic.  Their next location for travel is Japan.  At the time Japan was really a forbidding country–they dealt with no one.  But Joncour went without question.  After traveling across the world, he ends up at the doors of Hara Kei, an aristocrat with access to silk.  Hara Kei agrees to Joncours requests and they make plans to deal.  What Joncour doesn’t count on is a beautiful European-looking woman who is resting her head in Hara Kei’s lap.  She looks at him, he looks at her, and she puts her head down.  They do not speak.  He takes his silkworm eggs and heads home.

The next year, he returns to Japan, traveling the same lengthy journey.  He stayed for several days with Hara Kei.  On the last day, the European looking woman came into his bath, covered his eyes and gently touched his face and chest. Before leaving, she placed a paper in his palm.  It was something written in Japanese which he could not read.  When he returned home, it took him 42 days before his willpower faded and he went to a merchant in the next town to have her translate the paper.

It was a short poetic plea.

The next year, he visits again.  This time, the woman has something planned for him–a romantic and erotic gesture (although she herself commits no infidelity).

Each time that he returns home, his wife Helene is happy to see him, and he pledges his love to her.  We don’t really see her point of view but we sense that something is different in him.  But he tells her that is so happy to see her and that he has missed her.

The final time that he returns to Japan, the country is at war.  Hara Kei is on the move, and Joncour has a hard time tracking him down.  But he does, and that’s when things grow difficult for everyone.

The ending of the story is shocking but, as with everything else in the story, it is a very quiet shock.  Everything seems upended in a few pages, but in the most placid way ever.

Balaccio has once again created a short book that is full of beautiful writing (this time translated by Guido Waldman who does a great job).  But I think the most amazing thing about this story is how emotional the story is with nothing spoken between the two characters and with very little written that might be described as “emotional.”

I really liked this a lot and I’m curious to see how it works as a movie.