I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE HELIGOATS-Tiny Desk Concert #98 (December 15, 2010).

I thought that I would have written about all of 2010’s Tiny Desk shows last year, but it turns out that I missed two.  This was one and tomorrow’s will be the second.

According to the blurb, Stephen Thompson says that this was the 100th Tiny Desk Concert.  I have counted all the shows (twice) and using my counting method, I found this to be the 98th show.  So either this was aired out of order or they never aired two shows.  I have noticed that I’ve been off on all of their milestones, so something is up (and I’m pretty sure it’s not my counting).

Chris Otepka is the Heligoats. He has another band called Troubled Hubble, but Heligoats are his acoustic unplugged band.

In addition to singing unusual songs (he’s a songwriter for whom lyrics are very important (if not always comprehensible)), he tells some elaborate stories between songs.  His stories seem spontaneous, although I expect that they are not (especially the cremation story)

“Goodness Gracious” is a slower song (although he somehow makes a really full sound with just his (small) acoustic guitar).  There’s some great lyrics and twists of phrase in this song.  And his voice is quite nice, too.

“I’m Pretty Sure I Can See Molecules” is a song he says he started writing when he was 8 years old.  He says he liked pushing his fingers back into his eye sockets to see what kind of fractals appeared.  He gives a lengthy explanation about this phenomena which he says is the cause of floaters.  All of this is an introduction to this uptempo song.  I really like the somewhat “off” chord he plays between chorus and verse.

Before “A Guide to the Outdoors,” he talks about cremation and the metal parts in his body.  And about having his will explain about his robotic existence.  The song seems to be a letter written to the person who has found his dead body?  It’s surprisingly upbeat though.

The final song, “Fish Sticks,” is my favorite.  It is about a man named Carl Beakman who gets a grant to protect a wetland for migratory birds (I suspect all of this is nonsense, but whatever).  I like the way the song has super fast strumming and the bouncy chord progression in the verses.

The Heligoats require close listening, and the songs are worth it.

[READ: January 6, 2015] “A Little Bottle of Tears”

As part of last year’s push to read a lot of books, I blew off most of my magazines.  So this year I’m going to get back to all the issues I missed and I’m going to try to keep up with my subscriptions going forward.

I’m starting with the Harper’s that I hadn’t read in 2015 and then I’m going to move on to the errant New Yorkers.

I’m starting with this story.

I haven’t really liked any of Diane Williams’ stories.  I find them maddeningly elliptical.  She has some excellent sentences and turns of phrase but as for an entire story, I’m always left wondering what I just read.

This is a short piece about how people could have better friendships if they weren’t so old.

The narrator (a male, we learn later) says that they were at a friend’s house and “we all but ignored the wife’s tears.”  Shortly after that her husband said “Bettie’s tired.”  Which the narrator implies is akin to “Fuck off now.”

While I enjoy the way she says some things, I was utterly puzzled by this paragraph:

I went into the bathroom to urinate before we left.  I am a man, if that wasn’t clear before this, and not a drunken one, not cruel–and I was holding myself then, gently, somewhat lovingly, to relieve myself.

First off, it was in no way clear that the narrator was a man.  Second, who thinks like that?  And third, who goes to the bathroom like that?  It all paints a lovely picture, but a completely unbelievable one.

The story ends with the narrator and his wife becoming good friends with someone else.

I liked the last sentence.  I rather wish the story had started there.