I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RUBBLEBUCKET-Tiny Desk Concert #416 (January 20, 2015).

Rubblebucket plays horn-infused music that is fun but not too crazy.  With a name like that I thought they’d be a bit more wild, but although they are fun (they asked if they could bring a confetti cannon–Bob was a killjoy on that front) their music is fairly traditional.  The trombone (I can’t believe how many trombones I’ve written about in the last week) even has a mute on it.

Singer Kalmia Traver is fun and bouncy (with a bizarre sweater).  And she is an engaging front woman.

The band plays 3 songs.  “Carousel Ride” has a some great lead trumpet (by Alex Toth) and some rather complicated rhythms.  For the second song, “On the Ground,” Traver straps a tambourine to her foot and also plays flute

“The Sound of Erasing” is a song about skinny dipping your pain way (in which Toth plays flute and trumpet as well), while Traver plays keyboard).

Her voice sounds a little weak (I don’t know if she normally hits some of those notes) but that seems to be a common problem with singers coming in during the day to these Tiny Desk Concerts.

While they won’t be a favorite band of mine, this set was really enjoyable.

[READ: January 28, 2015] Tomboy

I saw this at the library.  Between the simple cover and the intriguing premise, I had to check it out.

This is Liz Prince’s memoir of growing up as a tomboy–not a lesbian, not a cross dresser (well, maybe), just a girl who enjoyed playing with boys.  And the heaps of abuse she received all through school for it.

The story starts out simply enough with Liz being old enough to say she doesn’t want to wear dresses.  And it’s cute and her parents are cool with her decision–because really it doesn’t matter all that much when you’re little.  She had a younger brother who had long hair, what was the problem?  This was during the 80s, I believe.

But then she started going to school where wearing boy’s clothes would certainly cause some comments–especially from the older boys.  God, kids suck.

Liz learned early on that she liked “boy’s” toys more than “girl’s” toys–action figures rather than dolls, bugs rather than princesses.  And also that most of her heroes were the male heroes of movies–why be rescued when you can do the rescuing?  (The part where she hops in  time machine to yell at a “model” who claims to be a tomboy in a magazine article is hilarious).

She eventually found a strange truism among the other kids.  She liked boys games (sports and what not) and not girls games (she found girls too bitchy).  But boys didn’t want to play with her because she was a girl and they thought she was weird for wanting to play with them (even if they enjoyed the same thing).

Over the years she had friends who were tomboys, although many of them”grew out” of it.  She also had some boy friends who were cool with her.  Although when her best friend wanted to become her boyfriend, that just messed everything up.

Things got even worse in 6th grade when she started getting a crush on a cute boy.  She still dressed like a boy, and he didn’t like that about her at all, so there was no chance for her.  Especially once she started getting really self-conscious about her body and began wearing a T-shirt swimming (she has much sympathy for those who swim with shirts on).

Of course high school was no better, but she decided she wanted to go to Catholic school, where her friends were going.  Foolishly she chose a catholic school where uniforms were mandatory.  She somehow convinced the principal to let her wear boys’ clothes (a shirt and tie) which naturally didn’t go over that well either.

Puberty was a nightmare because Prince didn’t want to become a woman, but that was inevitable.

Her only salvation came when she went to a Waldorf kind of school and there were lots of other misfits who embraced her.  She even got a boyfriend!

But it wasn’t until she found a community center that collected zines (how cool is that?) where she learned that there were others who hated gender norms.  She embraced a punk culture (good thing this happened in the 90s!).

I enjoyed this book a lot.  It was moving and a little sad and I hope that tomboys now can read this and feel comfort and maybe get a little less grief from the kids in school.  Prince’s drawing style is incredibly simple–black and white with few lines.  It feels almost childlike but it was really effective for its simplicity.

You can check out some of Liz’s stuff online at her site.