I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RAPSODY-Tiny Desk Concert #498 (January 5, 2016).

As part of my New Year’s resolution, I’m going to try to keep up with the Tiny Desk shows as they happen.

This is the first Tiny Desk Concert of 2016, and I’m afraid it was pretty disappointing.

Rapsody is a rapper, but I feel like she doesn’t have a lot of flow.  Or if she does, it’s kind of slow and meandering.  There was nothing really captivating about her style.  And her rhymes weren’t all that exciting either.

“Godzilla” is a very pro-God song (the twist on God and Zilla is interesting), but the song isn’t that inspired.  She spends most of the song asking people to clap (the room is full of students from Howard University).  Her rhymes are just not that interesting in this song.

Her second song (with a horrific cheesy sax solo throughout) has a great premise–a song about the boys who have grown up too fast because they lack strong black fathers.  The problem with it is that a song like this, which could be powerful as a message, has a chorus of “I been the motherfuckin ….”  Which ain’t going garner much airplay.

“Hard to Choose” is about being a black female in hip hop.  She wanted to be a good role model for young girls.  Once again, her flow isn’t that exciting and her rhymes don’t really  do much for me.  Of course, she disses hipsters who don’t understand, and I guess that’s me.

Rapsody has some great messages.  I wish her a lot of success and I hope that her positive messages are heard by millions.  I just wont be listening.

[READ: January 5, 2015] “Outage”

As part of my new year’s resolution, I’m going to read all of the old New Yorker stories from 2008-2015 to fill in any gaps (I’ve missed about 50 stories in seven years).  In a few months I should have all of the stories from 2008-2016 (or close to the current story as possible) read and posted.  How exciting!

This was something of a perfect short story and a great way to start the back issues.

I don’t read a lot of Updike, for no particular reason.  So I don’t really know if this is the kind of thing he typically writes.   But the way it was constructed and the details he put in made this story seem so effortless and very true.

Set in the suburbs of Boston, Brad Morris is working from home when a storm comes through the area.  The weatherpersons had made a huge deal out of it since they are “always eager for ratings-boosting disasters.”  But the actual weather seemed to be on and off heavy rain.

And then just as the storm seemed to be over, the power went our.  The description, “the house seemed to sigh, as all its lights and little engines, its computerized timers and indicators, simultaneously shut down.”  That is exactly right.

With literally nothing to do he decided to run some errands downtown.  Updike describes the downtown (which is small) in great details–not boring detail, just great detail, really bringing this small community to life.  Of course, the downtown is having a power failure too, so no one is open.  He can’t do any real business, but he is able to buy a bag of nuts at the health food store (they know him and she makes change from her purse)

But since everyone knows each other, it means that a power failure like this brings out the best in everyone.  This is true in my experience as well.  When things are different–snowfall, power failures the like, people act like they are on holiday.  It is wonderful.

On the way home he sees his neighbor walking down the street.  He doesn’t know her well, but she flags him down to see what’s going on.

He offers her a lift home and, with the right kind of magical realism that a power failure encourages, a flirtatious banter builds between these two married people.

The end of the story is like a dream, and I especially appreciated that aspect.  It could have been a simple, kind of icky male fantasy story, but  Updike twists it somewhat.

When I finished I actually felt like I had been in a power failure (it helped that I was in my house alone for a few minutes with literally no noise except the hum of appliances–a total rarity).  It helped me to feel transported to small town Massachusetts.

This is what a short story should be like.