I Just Read About That…

  SOUNDTRACK: RANA SANTACRUZ–Tiny Desk Concert #88 (November 2, 2010).

This is a fascinating Tiny Desk that was posted exactly five years ago as a way to celebrate the Day of the Dead.  Rana Santacruz plays ranchero music.  I did not know what to expect from ranchero music but to me there is a very bluegrass feel.  There is a banjo and a fiddle!  And then there’s trumpet and Santacruz’ accordion playing and Spanish lyrics.

The first song “Tacho El Gacho” begins with horns and has a kind of mariachi feel (Santacruz is dressed like a mariachi), but the song soon switches to that bluegrass feel and is very fun.

He introduces the next song by saying “The next song is called ‘Death.'”   And they play a ten second piece.  They laugh and joke that the real next song is “Dejala Entrar” about a sailor who leaves with death willingly  because of his happy life.  The chorus: “open the door let her in, death herself is here to pick me up.”  This one is like a sea shanty.

The third song is “El Funeral De Tacho” which has more trumpet and feels more mariachi in the opening.

He jokes about all their death songs but says that their songs that deal with death are happy ones.  And indeed, “El Ranchero Punk” feels like a real hootenanny.   The bass player even plays drums on the bass.

I enjoyed this set a lot, and even not really knowing what he was singing about, I totally got into the songs.

[READ: July 7, 2015] Laika

If you know who Laika is, you know that this is not going to be a happy story.  If you don’t know who Laika is, shame on you.  Laika was the first living creature shot into orbit.  She did not survive but she has become legend.

Abdzis has done a ton of research into Laika and the communist/American space race of the 1950s and 60s.  And he has created a wonderfully researched and nicely detailed account of the life of Laika and the people who handled her (and the women who loved her).

The story opens on a man walking through the snow. He has just been released from the gulag and is walking to the nearest town (in freezing weather).  It is Sergei Pavlovich, the future creator of Sputnik (he was falsely accused of treason).  And as the first chapter ends we see his success–Sputnik was the first satellite launched into orbit.  And we see that Nikita Khrushchev wants another satellite in one month.

And then we flash back to meet Laika as she is born.  Laika (which means bark) was actually born Kudryavka, in a small, poor village where no one needed another mouth to feed.  Eventually, she was given to a bratty boy. They hoped that taking care of a dog would teach him responsibility, but  he wound up tossing the dog into the river.

She eventually became a feral creature chased by dog catchers.  When she is eventually caught she is brought to the science buildings for training.

Then we meet Yelena Dubrovsky.  She is the woman who cared for and trained the dogs as they were prepared the for various experiments.  She loved the dogs, and especially fell for Kudryavka (which means “Little Curly” as befit her tail).  Throughout their scenes Kudryavka is given a voice in which she thinks “Good Dog” and “Yelena” and she is a happy dog… for a while.  Even when she is outfitted with a flight suit and sent into zero gravity (she actually seems to like the sense of flying) .

Yelena is able to humanize the scientist Oleg Gregorvitch and gets him to have feelings for the dogs in their care (to his professional detriment, of course).

And then there is the inevitable buildup as Laika is chosen and tested and prepped to be sent into space.  We see the perspective of the scientists who are interested only in Sputnik II working–and who do not care about the fate of one dog–since so much is riding on this, but we also see those who do worry about Laika.

There was of course tremendous celebration throughout Russia when Sputnik II was launched, but evidently there was much propaganda about the success of the mission.  Apparently not much actual information was gleaned from the experiment.  Apparently also, Laika, who was not expected to return died in space much sooner than they let on.  And Oleg Gazenko in 1998 said “The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it.  We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.”

As for the truth of this story, Abadzis notes that his intention was to avoid anthropomorphism in portraying the central canine character. Thus Laika’s traits of trust and eagerness to please are portrayed through her non-verbalised behaviour, and the reactions of the more sympathetic humans with whom she comes in contact.  Whereas, many of the incidents portrayed by Abadzis, such as Laika being taken home by a senior officer to play with his children shortly before the launch, are recorded as having actually occurred.  Yelena is a fictional composite.