I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ANONYMOUS 4 and BRUCE MOLSKY-Tiny Desk Concert #428 (March 28, 2015).

I first heard about Anonymous 4 way back in 1990 when they started.  I even have their debut album of lovely classical a capella.  Now, twenty-five years and twenty-one albums later they are calling it quits.

Their final album is 1865, released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. and containing songs from that era.

They sing three songs and, unusual as far as I’m concerned, they accompanied by Bruce Molsky, who plays banjo and violin and sings on “Hard Times.”  His voice mixes very well with their higher register–and they can hit some really high notes.

It’s unexpected to hear these singers whom I associate with classical music, singing these “traditional” songs.  But they do a wonderful job.

• Listen to the Mocking Bird (Richard Milburn, Alice Hawthorne)
• Hard Times Come Again No More (Stephen Foster)
• Home, Sweet Home/Polly Put The Kettle On (Henry Bishop, John Howard Payne/Trad.)

As the site explains, the group is original members Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky and Susan Hellauer, plus Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek along with singer, banjo player and fiddler Bruce Molsky, who also appears on the album.

You can watch it here.

[READ: April 4, 2015] Five Dials 33 part I

This issue celebrates the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall and features illustrations by: Cari Vander Yacht.  They are cool colorful colored pencil drawings sprinkled throughout the issue.  Most of them are vaguely alien creatures sitting around, shopping, doing a head stand (or break dancing).  You know, as aliens do.

Rather than a letter from the editor, we get a link entitled What’s this issue all about?  It is a link to a Guardian article about #readwomen2014 asking Will #readwomen2014 change our sexist reading habits?  Of course, it is now 2015 and I missed the whole thing.  I wonder if it did.

JENNI FAGAN-A Letter
This is a letter to her future self, written when she was teenager.  She talks about working in a grunge place and doodling a lot until a note went out that staff must stop doodling.  She says she doesn’t really know what the letter is. It is anything.

SUSAN BARBOUR-“Tune”
A lengthy poem.  I like the part where she wonders how the singers of “Susie Q” know her name and then realizes that they obviously don’t.

LAUREN ELKIN-“Sing Out, Louise” on whispery girls, desperate theatre girls, and the Hathaway backlash.
I agree with much in this essay.  But I also disagree with parts of it.  The PDF is full of links to YouTube videos which that try to establish her point.  She says that after watching the musical Once she was moved to think that there’s a trend of waifish singers in indie music.  “Whispery female voices from thin white girls.”  She blames Seabear, Art in Manila, and Lasorda.  And she claims that this musical choice is a pandemic.  While these bands do what she says (waifish singer) there are so many, many rocking female fronted bands, that it is terribly narrow-minded to blame these bands with a particular sound as responsible objectifying women.  To me this is further complicated if I ask why you might expect these women to sing differently than their voices allow.  This seems objectifying in itself.  But then comparing them to male singers who belt out like in Beirut, and Dirty Projectors, (as if there are no whispery voiced men) just seems silly.  This is not to say I disagree with her premise that women are objectified in the media.  If Amanda Seyfriend did have breast reduction surgery to get her career jump started, that’s awful.

And, I do think she is very much correct in her criticism of the backlash against of Anne Hathaway for her singing prowess and that she has won awards and is genuinely earnest.  Interestingly, she compares the whispering singer to the Broadway diva (Lea Michele) and how Anne Hathaway is not unlike Lea Michele’s real life character in Glee.

She ties it up nicely with a review of Gypsy, the 1959 musical, which is about making it in show biz and always leaving them wanting more. But I can’t help feel that the early section about indie rock is misguided.

RACHEL GENN-Antiparos
This story was confusing even after two reads.  But that was mainly the opening which was very odd.  Eventually we learn that this is set in Greece (I assume) near the island of Dipla. The narrator marvels at the men in their tan litheness while she herself is pale and avoids the sun.  Then a dwarf comes out (I can never read a about a dwarf in a story without thinking of that scene from Living in Oblivion when Peter Dinklage complains:

Nick [Steve Buscemi]: Look, Tito, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s a dream. Strange things happen in a dream. All I want you to do is laugh. Why is that such a problem for you?

Tito [Peter Dinklage]: Why does it have to be a dwarf?

Nick: What?!

Tito: Why does my character have to be a dwarf?

Nick: It doesn’t have to be a dwarf.

Tito: [laughs contemptuously] Then why is he? Is that the only way you can make this a dream—put a dwarf in it?!

Nick: No, Tito, I—

Tito: Have you ever had a dream with a dwarf in it? Do you know anyone who’s had a dream with a dwarf in it? NOOOOOO! I don’t even have dreams with dwarves in them. The only place I’ve seen dwarves in dreams is in stupid movies like this! “Oh, make it weird; put a dwarf in it!” Everyone will go: “Whoa whoa whoa, this must be a fuckin’ dream; there’s a fuckin’ dwarf in it!” Well, I’m sick of it! You can take this dream sequence and shove it up your ass!

Eventually we learn that the narrator is with a star named Gigi.   They are together in her tent (and there’s a pretty hot sex scene).  The men all know she is there while they are playing volleyball.   And then it kind of ends.

I do rather enjoy the shorter Five Dials (at least for recapping), so this one was a fun little read.  The Part II of this issue is much longer and has a lot more writing from women.