I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TREY ANASTASIO-Tiny Desk Concert #414 (January 5, 2015).

I’m introducing this delightful little Tiny Desk Concert here because Trey Anastasio joined up with Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland for the band Oysterhead, coming up next.

Anastasio is the lead singer and guitarist of Phish (and several side projects).  Because I tend to hear him amid the noise and jamming of Phish, it’s easy to forget that Trey has a very nice, delicate voice.  It’s also easy to forget amid all of his jamming guitar solos that he plays a lovely acoustic guitar as well.

He plays 3 songs in 12 minutes and is as affable as ever.

“Sleep Again” is a really pretty song.  In introducing the second song he says that he and his wife lived in a farmhouse in Vermont and listened to NPR all the time–the radio was tuned to Vermont Public Radio 24 hours a day.  And he says that NPR entertained his family for so many years that it’s an honor to do something for them.  This song, “Summer of ’89”  is a tribute to his 20th anniversary of being married to his wife Sue.  It’s quite lovely and moving.

He ends with a sweet version of “Backwards Down the Number Line,” one of my favorite new Phish songs.  I don’t think I ever quite realized what the lyrics were before.  I prefer the album version (mostly because of the gorgeous backing vocals) but this is a really nice version.

As they say in the write up, it’s interesting to hear him in this very quiet setting rather than in big arenas or in collaboration.

Check it out here.

[READ: January 20, 2014] “Immovable Feast”

This week’s issue of the New Yorker was its semi-annual food issue.  As such there were four food-related essays by writers who I’ve written about before.  The section was called “Rations.”

The third was by Chang-Rae Lee.

Lee talks about eating in the dorms at Phillips Exeter and how the food was universally disgusting.  [When I was in school there were rumors that the meals were consistently labelled Grade D But Edible (this from our food provider: ARA (which we named American Retards of America–such is the cleverness of college)).  Of course, now that I work at Princeton, I can report that the food here is outstanding.]

He offers one of my favorite quotes about dining ever: “You could fix yourself a basic salad or a bowl of cornflakes, but I always wanted hot food for dinner, and still do.  A cold supper for me is like being dipped in a melancholy sauce.”

We were pretty mean (under our breath) about the people who worked in the caf, but at least we didn’t call them wombats (at Exeter the food was transferred through underground tunnels, evidently).

Because he felt guilty buying treats with his parents’ money, he didn’t often buy pizzas at night (he also didn’t like the New England pizza).  And since he wasn’t big into sweets, his treat choices were (I love this) chub salamis and port-wine cheese balls.

But mostly he ate in the dining hall; it was his duty.

Interestingly, in contrast to what he claims was a bland meal that everyone endured, he wonders if that was better than having everyone’s desires catered to, like kids at Exeter do now:  “You had few choices, hardly any liberties.  But you dreamed.”

I think fondly of my times at the caf–it was a lot of fun with friends and somehow the Grade D united us all.