I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ-Tiny Desk Concert #436 (April 29, 2015).

I really like José González.  The Swedish singer is one of the most soft-spoken singers I know.  His guitar playing is gentle and quiet (although more complex than it seems at first) and most of his songs sound, well, kind of the same.  But it’s more of a “I know what I’m getting” from him rather than an ”all his songs sound the same” vibe.

It’s fun watching his sing these songs because he barely moves, he barely even seems to raise his voice.  He is so mellow.

For the first song, “Open Book” he is accompanied on (lovely) backing harmonies by just one fellow (sometimes NPR forgets to include the band members in the credits).

On the second song, “With The Ink Of A Ghost,” three more guys come in and add more beautiful harmonies and a xylophone and a clarinet solo.

The final song, “Every Age” features the percussion of a tambourine and the clarinet player slapping his thigh and snapping his fingers…that’s the kind of raucousness you get from José González.

It’s a delight.

[READ: April 16, 2015] “The Weight”

This is an excerpt from 10:04 Lerner’s latest novel.

As with many excerpts, it’s not clear if the entire novel is about what the excerpt is about or if there’s a lot more going on.

This excerpt focuses on the narrator (in first person) as he welcomes an Occupy Wall Street protester into his house. The protestor has been in Zucotti park for a few weeks.  We learn that “civilians” have been offering protestors showers and food via Craigslist.  The protester took the narrator up on his offer.

The story stays in the apartment.  It begins in the kitchen with the narrator musing that he has never actually made food for another human being before (he’s making the guy some tofu and veg stir fry as a warm meal).  He realizes that people have made him food a lot, but he has never reciprocated. He gets mixed feeling about his–not helping people in the past but doing something good now (even if it is nothing compared to what this guy is doing).

The food was okay, but the conversation was better.  The protester was saying how doing all of this has made him chill out when it came to other men.  He’d always felt that other men were mean and cruel–and he had a “can I take him?” attitude about every guy he met.  But the kindness he has met recently has shed some of that.

And then they get into a very funny discussion about the way men piss–making a show of supporting their back with their free arm if they held their penis in one hand or grasping their members with two hands.  “As if either of those postures were required by the weight.”  It was just the other day that a fellow protester observed him doing this and then said “When are you going to quite acting like it weight so much, man?”  And this really opened his eyes.

This proves to be a really fun encounter, presumably for both men.

This excerpt went in a direction I totally didn’t expect.  And I’m curious to read more.

For ease of searching, I include: Jose Gonzalez.