I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DAVID WAX MUSEUM-Tiny Desk Concert #103 (January 9, 2011).

I know of David Wax Museum from NPR’s coverage of The Newport Folk Festival back in 2010 (audio from their show is no longer online, sadly).  They played a wonderful set of interesting, somewhat Mexican sounding music.

David Wax plays a tiny Mexican jarocha guitar and Sue Slezak plays percussion on a donkey jawbone–which sounds great and is quite unusual to see.  The band is rounded out with Sam D’Agostino on saxophone and percussion and Mike Roberts on guitar and upright bass.

“Yes, Maria, Yes” opens the set with a lot of fun (how does that little guitar sound so buoyant?)  Wax and Slezak sing wonderfully together, and that jawbone introduces such an unusual sound.  About 1:20 into the song, the bass comes in and adds a whole new low end.  But then there’s a crash as the bridge from the bass collapsed!  Thus ends the bass in the song, although it’s not really missed.

For “Let Me Rest,” a far more mellow song, Wax switches to a full-sized guitar, Roberts switches to electric guitar (and they bemoan the loss of his bass) and Slezak plays fiddle.

Wax says that they have been in Washington DC playing house concerts every night, perhaps they have graduated to office concerts.

“Unfruitful” is one of my favorite of theirs.  The opening is interesting with the band kind of warming up (and Wax bouncing all out of frame).  It’s a raucous fun song with the fun chorus of “Tunnels in the sand.”  With Slezak wailing on the fiddle and Wax singing his heart out, it’s a great conclusion

I really enjoy David Wax Museum and I’ll get to see them at a Festival this summer.

[READ: January 6, 2015] “One Day Less”

I have been aware of Clarice Lispector for years, although I have never read her work (I recently got a free copy of her gigantic collected stories, so I hope to read that some day).

This story was the last one she wrote (it was found on her desk after her death–creepy)

It is an unusual story in which a woman, Margarida Flores, wonders how to fill the time in her day.

As the story opens, she wonders if death will come, if her endless days will ever end.  Perhaps death is a bluff?

She had a long day ahead with no plans.  She doesn’t even have the will to read or watch TV.  Then the story is filled with a section where the text reads:

And then?
Then.
Then.
Well, anyway.
That’s how it is
Isn’t it?

She wonders what would happen if anyone ever called her.  And then a few paragraphs later the phone finally rings–the first time in years, she believes.  But of course it is a wrong number.

Rather than just hanging up, she gets into an argument with the woman on the other end.  The woman is in disbelief that the person she called for doesn’t live there.  Their conversation is really quite funny.

Margarida passes the time for the next few hours until 8PM comes along when she can finally go to sleep.  But of course she cannot sleep.   Perhaps she can end this day the way her mother did–with the sleeping pills that are still in her mother’s drawer.  She has a lot of things left over from her mother–although there is no explanation of how or when she died.

She can be like her mother and wake up rosy for the next day.

It’s interesting how little drama there was in this story and yet how strangely compelling it was.

It was translated from Portuguese by Katrina Dodson.