I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: YACHT-Tiny Desk Concert #136 (June 22, 2011).

Yacht is a synthy band with a dramatic and charismatic lead singer–Claire Evans.

There are tons of synth and funky synth sounds on “Dystopia (The Earth is On Fire)”.  But what really sound great are the excellent harmony vocals.  There is some guitar but it’s pretty overshadowed by the synth (and synth drums).  I don’t love the line “The earth is on fire.  We don’t have no daughter.  Let the mother father burn.”  But I’m willing to accept it because the synth solo is pretty cool.

The keyboardist and programmer switch places for “Psychic City (Voodoo City).”  The guitar is more prominent in this song primarily because the song is practically a capella–the chorus is principally Aye Yi Yah Yah HOOH, Aye Yi Yah Yah HO HO, which would probably be a lot of fun to sing along to live, but feels a little tedious here.

After this song it is revealed–horrors–that there was gum under Bob’s desk and Jona Bechtolt gets some on his nice pants.  There is talking of sending them the dry cleaning bill, but Claire grimaces and says “too soon.”

“Shangri-La” opens with an interesting synth riff (and the guys in back switch places).  The chorus “If I can’t get to heaven let me go to L.A.” is pretty funny.

I’m not sure what the band sounds like when it is not stripped down (the blurb talks about how long it took them to get settled), but I feel like their lyrics don’t support the stripped down sound.

[READ: February 17, 2015] Giants Beware

This is a First Second children’s graphic novel.  It is quite long for a children’s book (200 pages) but it’s a lot of fun and the design is fantastic.

The story opens with an old storyteller telling a story to a bunch of kids.  It’s the story of the Baby Feet Eating Giant.  The giant liked to eat the feet of all the babies in the village.  No one was safe until the brave leadership of the great Marquis Pierre the XXXII. He chased the giant into the mountains and built a wall around the village to keep it secure.

The end.

Except, as the young girl on the cover of the book says…  Well?  How did he kill the giant?  Did they “tell the evil giant a pointless story and he died of boredom?”  This is Claudette; she wants to hear action.  She wants to hear about giant slaying.  She thinks that leaving the giant outside and simply building a wall around the city is irresponsible.

As the story teller walks away he mumbles that she is just like her father and look where that got him.

Where it got him is with two missing legs and a missing arm.  But this story is not about him, it’s about Claudette and her quest to slay the giant.

She runs to her brother Garcon (who really only wants to be a chef ans is quite the coward) and her friend Marie (daughter of the Marquis and who only wants to be a princess).  She lies to them about what the quest will do for their future and they set off to slay the giant.

The bulk of the story is their trek to the Jungle of Death where they are captured by trees and do battle with the apple hag.  The have to cross the mad river (there’s a wonderful scene about marrying princes here) and the ultimate realization that they are just kids after all.

Following behind them are a group of adults determined to bring them back, including Claudette’s father, as well as the Marquis who aren’t too happy with the kids.

The story ends happily, but I was a little unsatisfied with the way it seemed like the Marquis had a secret to hide but it was never revealed.  I also have to admit that I didn’t realize the cover star was a girl until several pages in, but that may be my own lack of imagination.  I just learned that there’s a new book in the series coming out this year so hopefully that will address the unresolved question of the Marquis and will teach us more about the giants.

This is the first book in this week’s recap of First Second books, with the hashtag #10yearsof01