I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE CIVIL WARS-Tiny Desk Concert #137 (June 27, 3011).

Many Tiny Desk performances just show the band playing.  But there’s evidently a lot of time before hand where the band sets up and has fun.  I love seeing that, and it’s kind of a shame they cut so much of it out.

As this show starts, Joy Williams is holding the film clacker with Bob.  He tells her to give it a loud clack.  She kind of lets it go on its own accord and then says she didn’t do a good job.  John Paul White then says “I could have done it so much better,” to much laughter.

The Civil Wars are Joy and John Paul and they have terrific chemistry.  The first song is “Barton Hollow,” John Paul plays a loud percussive resonator guitar and the two sing great harmonies.  He sings loudly with her nice harmonies, but the middle part is quieter with her gorgeous voice singing out the lyrics.   I really like the down step chords in the “walking and running” section at the end of the song.

Before “Twenty Years” Bob asks if they ever had a desk job.

Joy says no: daycare, rock climbing.   John Paul says No: forklift driver, seed cleaning, (she asks what that means, but he doesn’t hear her which is a shame as I’d like to know too) cleaning out chicken houses.  He pauses…. I wanted a desk job.

For the song, John Paul switches to a simple acoustic guitar and plays less percussively for this somewhat quieter song.

It’s really fun to watch the two of them play together.  As the blurb notes: “There’s blissful, swooning chemistry as they stare into each other’s eyes and sing magnificently together.”  So it’s a bit of shock that they are not married to each other (they each have spouses, though).  Turns out that they met at a songwriting session at a Nashville studio in 2008.

Before “Poison & Wine” John Paul asks if they are all so quiet and respectful or if Bob rules with an iron fist.

Joy plays the keyboard for this song while John Paul plays a quiet guitar.  This song has wonderful harmonies in the beautiful if puzzling chorus , “I Don’t Love you, I always will.”

I didn’t know The Civil Wars before this set and I am really hooked.

[READ: February 2, 2016] The Unsinkable Walker Bean

This book has some pretty great blurbs attached to its (from Brain Selznick and Jeff Smith) but I found that I couldn’t really get into it.

A lot of the problem was the artwork.  Interestingly, the artwork on the cover (which I assume is also one by Reiner since it looks like his style) is really great.  But the interior art feels like a sloppy version of this cover art.  And while it’s not sloppy, of course, it just doesn’t look as nice as it might.  Couple that with text that is hard to read, a story line that is full of weird little details and twists and it all wound up being a story that felt way too long for what it was.

There was a lot that I did like about it.  I liked the general premise and I liked two of the crew members that Walker Bean befriends, and of course I loved the various gadgets that they created.  I just didn’t enjoy the story all that much.

The book begins with the fabled story of Atlantis and Walker Bean’s grandfather telling him about a trench down by the lost city.  In this trench are Tartessa and Remora the evil merwitch sisters.  They had created a wall of skulls and bones which talked to them about the past present and future (or something).

Turns out that if you steal anything from that wall and dare to look at it you will be cursed.  And that’s just what happened to Walker’s grandfather.  As the first chapter opens he is literally green and dying.  There is a weird-looking doctor (he stands out so much from everyone else that I kept expecting him to take off his “mask”) who is clearly underhanded.

Walker’s grandfather tells him to sail for the Mango Island and return the skull from whence it came.  It turns out that his grandfather didn’t steal the skull from the trench, he bought it from a merchant, but he still looked at it and is now dying.

The rest of the story involves Walker stealing the skull from his father (who believes it is very valuable and would never dream of returning it).  His father also doesn’t seem to care much about Walker (or his own father).  Once he flees the scene with the skull, Walker heads out to sea.

Things get confusing from the get go because there are pirates who attack the village.  Someone steals the skull from Walker and then sets the village on fire.

Eventually Walker winds up on the pirate ship.  And I rather liked this bunch.  He befriends a boy named Shiv an a girl (who has pointed ears and whom I thought was an elf, but apparently wasn’t) named Genoa.  She is the one who tried to steal the skull in the first place ( I think).  They also have a dog named Perrogi, which is just weird.

Shiv tried to hide Walker from the rest of the ship.  While Walker writes letter to his grandpa to put n a bottle–(I like that the bottle reached his grandpa and then the return letter found Walker immediately).

They also find some interesting devices in his grandpa’s chest –like a star chart on a piece of metal that comes to life when heated (this metal comes from Atlantis).  There’s also a cool musical device that seems to be language based.

During the story, there are crosses and double crosses and the Doctor gets involved again.  And I think that the ship that Walker is on is run by pirates but I think there are other pirates too.  Walker’s father is part of the regular navy in some way.

And while all of this is going on, don’t forget about the giant sea merwitches who are still there, waiting.  I was sure one of them died but there are two at the end, so who knows.

On the plus side, I love the way Walker tricks the pirate with cloth and the star projector.

But the climax is a confusing mess of double crossing and explosions and I’m still not exactly sure what happened.

Perhaps with some serious editing this story could have been more enjoyable.  I see that there is a meant to be a continued adventure in Book 2 which has not yet come out.  If it does, I hope it’s less confusing than book one.

I have enjoyed nearly all of the First Second graphic novels, but this one was a bit of a dud.  #10yearsof01